Amber Listserv / Alcohol and amber

[ambershop at heyme.nl]

Hiya,

To continue on the dissolving amber in alcohol...
We make amber tincture here by putting little baltic amber pieces into
nearly 100% alcohol. There was an article published in Gabriela Gielowska's
book 'on old amber collections and the Gdansk lizard' on the therapeutic
properties of amber describing a few people using amber for different
ailments, especially things like rheumatic diseases, flu, bronchitis among
others. The succinic acid in the amber is believed to be responsible, nobel
price winner Robert Koch did studies on this, and found it benificial for
humans, and proved that the human organism does not retain traces of the
acid, no matter which amount is taken. Further there is Father A. Cz.
Klimusko(1988) who found himself having a severe flu with no aspirin, but
rubbed himself with amber tincture on his chest causing a drop of his
temperature rapidly, and next morning he was right as rain again.. And he
was absolutely pessimistic and did not believe at all this worked, but used
it ever after since..
Anyway, I made the tincture myself, they sell the little pieces especially
for this at the beaches near Gdansk, and use it myself whenever I feel the
need for a sore neck, any cold and flu etc. And I do think it works. More
research has been done where the general consensus is that there is
definitly therapeutic properties in it, by too many people to quote here.
Anyway, to get back to the core...my little pieces used for making the
tincture do not dissolve in the alcohol, they do loose their color however,
they went nearly white after a week of soaking, and now after half a year
they are still happily sitting at the bottom of the bottle.

I just think amber is beautiful, and love every aspect of it, but finding
out about the tincture did make it even more interesting. 
Regards,
Heyme
www.heyme.nl/amber