KLOBIUS, Justus Fidus

First edition of this curious and charmingly illustrated work on the natural history and medicinal properties of amber, ambergris, musk and guano. The plates depict a frog and lizard trapped in amber, a civet and musk deer, a man harvesting guano, and a world map including a significant portion of Australia or 'Terra Incognita', which had been most extensively documented only very recently by the Dutch cartographer Johannes Blaeu in his map of 1663.

It is evident that Klobius was not sure precisely what amber is. He puts forward several theories from other authors: that it is sea foam, the liver of fishes, the sperm of sea-monsters, the fruit of submarine trees, and produced in the stomach of whales (really ambigris), etc. Klobius argues for its putative origin in bird excrement, or guano, produced by a particular bird, called in Madagascan the Aschibobuch and in Maldivian the Anacangrispasqui, which was in fact completely mythical. Klobius arrived at this conclusion from a number of sources attesting the existence of amber-producing exotic birds in countries and islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans. One plate depicts large, dangerous-looking birds with spoon-like bills, tufted heads and large talons. Klobius admits that he struggled to confirm the truth of these reports, and instead provides a catalogue of his sources, including the atlases of Ortelius, Visscher and Blaeu, hence the accompanying world map.

Also included in this section are anecdotal accounts of the wondrous medicinal qualities of the guano, including one from a published life of Sir Francis Bacon, that an Indian apothecary had used it to live to one hundred and sixty years. There follow descriptions of the different kinds of 'amber' and their qualities, their healing powers for diseases including apoplexy, melancholy and hypochondria, vertigo and dizziness, and recipes for the preparation of medicines with amber. Finally, Klobius poses and answers a series of questions, such as, will amber get you drunk if infused in wine, and why does amber cause suffocation of babies by the upward movement of the uterus? One question refers to an amber specimen in the famous wunderkammer of the Danish natural historian Ole Worm (1588-1654), the Museum Wormianum.