Sweet-amber. 16th century Italian illustration of leaves and flowers of sweet-amber (Hypericum androsaemum), by Gherardo Cibo, 1568. Sweet-amber, also known as tutsan, is traditionally used to treat sciatica, gout, burns, and other ailments. This plate is taken from Discorsi on Dioscorides' De Materia Medica by Pietro Andrea Mattioli, a work of herbal medicine first published in Italy in 1554. Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577) was an Italian doctor and naturalist who wrote commentaries on De Materia Medica , an encyclopaedia of herbal medicine by the first century Greek physician and botanist Dioscorides.