"Succinum seu succina gutta à succo dicta, Græcis [Greek: êlektrom] [sic], esse {35} lachryma populi albæ, vel etiam nigræ quibusdam videtur, ab ejusdem arboris resina. Dioscoridi et Galeno dicta differens et [Greek: pterugophoros], id est paleas trahens, quoque vocatur, quantum ei quoque Galenus tribuit li. 37, ca. 9. Succinum scribit à quibusdam pinei generis arboribus, ut gummi à cerasis excidere autumno, et largum mitti ex Germania septentrionali, et insulis maris Germanici. quod hodie nobis est compertissimum: ad hæc liquata igni valentiore, quia à frigido intensiore concrevit. pineam aperte olet, calidum primo gradu, siccum secundo, stomachum roborat, vomitum, nauseam arcet. cordis palpitationi prodest. pravorem humorum generationem prohibet. "Germani weiss und gelbaugstein et bre[=n]stein. "Galli ambra vocant: vulgo in corollis precariis frequens." In the scholia of Johann Lonicer in his edition of Dioscorides, we find, lib. i., cap. xcviii., _De nigra Populo_: "[Greek: aigeiros], populus nigra ... idem electrum vel succinum [Greek: haigeirou] lachrymam esse adseverat [Paulus], cui præter vires quæ ab Dioscoride recensentur, tribuit etiam vim sistendi sanguinis, si tusum in potu sumatur. Avicennæ Charabe, ut colligitur ex Joanne Jacobo Manlio, est electrum hoc Dioscoridis, attestatur Brunfelsius. Lucianus planè nullum electrum apud Eridanum seu Padum inveniri tradit, quandoquidem ne populus quidem illa ab nautis ei demonstrari potuerit. Plinius rusticas transpadanas ex electro monilia gestare adfirmat, quum à Venetis primum agnoscere didicissent adversus nimirum vitia gutturis et tonsillarum. Num sit purgamentum maris, vel lachryma populi, vel pinus, vel ex radiis occidentis solis nascatur, vel ex montibus Sudinorum profluat, incertum etiam Erasmus Stella relinquit. Sudinas tamen Borussiorum opes esse constat." Matthiolus (in _P. A. Mattioli ... Opera quæ extant omnia, hoc est Commentarii in vi libros P. Dioscoridis de materia medica_, Frankfurt, 1596, p. 133) comments on the suggestion of Galen that amber came from the _Populus alba_, and also comments on the Arabic, Greek, and Latin names of amber. The poplar-myth is commemorated by Addison (in _Italy_) in the lines: No interwoven reeds a garland made, To hide his brows within the vulgar shade; But poplar wreathes around his temples spread, And tears of amber trickled down his head. Amber is, however, assuredly not derived from any poplar tree: it comes from a species of pine long ago extinct, called by Göppert the _pinites succinifer_. Gilbert does not go into the medicinal uses, real or fancied, that have been ascribed to amber in almost as great variety as to loadstone. Pliny mentions some of these in his _Natural Historie_ (English version of 1601, p. 609):