Armenian bole
Bolus armenus, bole armeniac
- Known today as
- A fine red clay, colored by iron oxide.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- kaolinite and illite, iron oxides, silica
- Earliest authority here
- Galen (AD 129–c. 216)
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Armenian bole: what was it used for?
Drying and binding: for fluxes, bleeding, and the spitting of blood, and against the plague.
Armenian bole: what does modern science say?
An inert clay; any benefit came from binding the stool.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- kaolinite and illitethe clay
- iron oxidesthe red
- silica
- Mechanism
- A fine clay that adsorbs water, toxins, and bacteria in the gut and firms the stool, which is the use for fluxes and the same principle as kaolin and the modern diosmectite; dusted on it dries a weeping wound; against the plague it was faith. It can bind drugs taken with it and, in quantity, cause constipation and iron deficiency.
- Toxic dose
- Safe at pharmacopoeial doses; some natural clays carry lead.
- Standing
- Kaolin is in the pharmacopoeias; diosmectite (Smecta) has trials for acute diarrhoea in children; bole itself is obsolete.
- Dupont, C., and Vernisse, B. (2009). “Anti-diarrheal effects of diosmectite in the treatment of acute diarrhea in children: a review.” Paediatric Drugs 11. Verified against its record · doi:10.2165/00148581-200911020-00001
- Photos-Jones, E., et al. (2017). “Testing Greco-Roman medicinal minerals: the case of solfataric alum.” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 10. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.jasrep.2016.08.042
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Armenian bole: what lore surrounds it?
It belongs to the same family as Lemnian earth, clay from the island of Lemnos stamped with a seal, hence terra sigillata, “sealed earth.” In antiquity the raw clay was mixed with goat’s blood before being impressed with a goat’s-head seal. Galen visited Lemnos to watch it dug; Pliny recommended the sealed earth for complaints of the tear ducts, spleen, and kidneys and for heavy menstruation. The trade nearly vanished after antiquity, then revived under the Ottomans from the fourteenth century and was carried across Europe into the nineteenth.
Used in These Compounds
Armenian bole is an ingredient of 1 compound medicine in the database. For Club members. Create a free account or sign in.
Armenian bole: what did the older authorities say?
- Galen
- Recommended it for the great plague of his day.
Sources
- Galen, On the Powers of Simple Medicines. Primary text
- “Lemnian Earth” and “Medicinal clay” (reference articles). Book, seen in reviews
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Sources
- 4 cited: 2 verified against its record, 1 primary text, 1 book, seen in reviews. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026
- Chicago
“Armenian bole.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified September 25, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/armenian-bole.
- MLA
“Armenian bole.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 25 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/armenian-bole. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Armenian bole. (2026, September 25). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/armenian-bole
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See Also
Sharing iron oxides, silica
Also in Galen
Caterpillar fungus in Galen · Theriac in Galen · Diatrion piperion in Galen · everything Galen names →
Drawing on the same sources: Galen, Dupont, Photos-Jones
Nearby in the alphabet
Armenian stone, pills of (azurite, a blue copper carbonate) · Apples, syrup of (A syrup of sweet apples) · Arthritica (named for its use against gout (note XLIX)) · Antimony (The metallic element and its compounds) · Asafoetida (“devil’s dung) · Aniseed (Pimpinella anisum) · Asarabacca (wild ginger of European woods) · Angel’s wings (fan-shaped fungus that rots conifer wood)
Historical description, not medical advice.