Ancient writers said that amber eased stomach pains, cured jaundice and goitre, and acted against certain poisons, Camillus Leonardus recommending it as a cure for toothache and affections of the teeth. In the Middle Ages it was used as a charm against fits, dysentery, jaundice, scrofula and nervous affections. Thomas Nicols, a 17th century writer, says: “Amber is esteemed the best for physic use, and is thought to be of great power and force against many diseases, as against the vertigo and asthmatic paroxysmes, against catarrhes and anthreticall pains, against diseases of the stomach and to free it from sufferings and putrefactions and against diseases of the heart, against plagues, venoms and contagions. It is used either in powder or in troches, either in distempers of men or of women, married or unmarried, or in the distempers of children.” The dose formerly administered for coughs, hysteria, etc., was from ten to sixty grains. Amber cut in various magical forms was extensively used as a charm against the evil eye, witchcraft and sorcery. It was and still is used as a mouthpiece for cigar and cigarette holders and smoking pipes, etc. Its employment in this capacity was originally talismanic, for it was implicitly believed that amber would not only prevent infection, but would act as a charm against it. Francis Barrett, in his work on Natural Magic, says that amber attracts all things to it but garden basil or substances smeared with oil. In China today amber is greatly esteemed, being used in the making of certain medicines, perfumes, and as an incense which use dates back to the Bible times. In such esteem is amber held in the East that the Shah of Persia is said to wear a block of amber on his neck to protect him against assassination. Perhaps no legend has been more ridiculed than the one which relates that amber was the solidified urine of the lynx; but the old writers Sudines and Metrodorus show that the lynx was not an animal but a tree from which amber is exuded, and which was known in Etruria as a Lynx. Pliny repeats from Ovid’s Metamorphoses the tradition among the Greeks that amber was the tears of the Heliades (Phaethusa, Ægle, Lampetia), the Sun Maidens, who harnessed the steeds of the Sun to the chariot when their rash brother Phaethon set forth on his fatal journey. The horses of the Sun were wild and strong, fire flew from their nostrils, and the youthful charioteer was not strong enough to keep them to their rightful course. The chariot, as its speed grew faster, became luminous, electric and fiery, the hair of the driver caught fire, the earth began to smoke and burn, Libya was parched into a waste of sand, Africa was afire, rivers were dried up, vegetation was destroyed, and the heat was so intense that the inhabitants of the stricken countries changed from white to black. Gaea, in fear for the earth, called on Jupiter for protection, who, with a lightning-bolt, struck the chariot, hurling the “stricken