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Ambra Alba, c1745-1807

© 2021 Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Description

Glass bottle containing a specimen of white ambergris (or ambergrise). From the Burges Collection.

Pomet and Lemery believed ambergrise was formed from honeycomb that had fallen into the sea, but it is actually a biliary secretion of the sperm whale, Physeter macrocephalus.

Text on paper labels reads ‘Catal. Mat. Med. p. 110. No. 1’ and ‘AMBRA ALBA’.

Pomet, in his Compleat History of Druggs, says that ‘Ambergrise, besides its Use for the Perfumers, by reason of its excellent Scent, is a very good Medicine to warm the Stomach, and prevent the Cause of the Gout from attacking the vital Parts; it refreshes the Animal Spirits by its volatile Sulphur, strengthens the debilitated Parts, and restores in Consumptions.’

Lemery says of the white ambergris that ‘it is nothing so strong, nor half so good’ as the general kind.