Calamine
Cadmia, tutia, tutty
- Known today as
- Zinc carbonate and zinc oxide.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- zinc oxide, iron(III) oxide
- Earliest authority here
- Dioscorides (c. AD 40–90)
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Calamine: what was it used for?
Drying and cooling, in ointments and powders for the eyes, ulcers, and itching.
Calamine: what does modern science say?
Still sold as calamine lotion for itching skin. The lotion, zinc oxide tinted pink with iron oxide, is on the World Health Organization’s list of essential medicines for the itch of sunburn, insect bites, and poison ivy: one of the few old remedies to pass unchanged into modern practice.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- zinc oxide ChEMBL
- iron(III) oxidethe pink
- Mechanism
- Zinc oxide is mildly astringent and antiseptic, and cools by evaporation as the lotion dries.
- Toxic dose
- Non-toxic on the skin.
- Standing
- On the WHO list of essential medicines.
- World Health Organization, Model List of Essential Medicines. Standard reference work
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.
Calamine: what lore surrounds it?
Tutty, the tutia of the Arabs, was the grey sublimate scraped from the chimneys of the Persian zinc furnaces and sold to the apothecaries of Europe for the eyes.
Calamine: what did the older authorities say?
- Dioscorides
- Describes cadmia, the crust that forms in the furnaces where copper is smelted, washed and burnt for ointments of the eye and for ulcers.
- The brassfounders
- Lapis calaminaris was the zinc ore that, heated with copper, made brass for two thousand years before zinc was known as a metal.
Sources
- Dioscorides, De materia medica V. Primary text
- World Health Organization, Model List of Essential Medicines. Standard reference work
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the fifty-entry sample
- 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
- 2 cited: 1 primary text, 1 standard reference work.
- 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 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Calamine.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/calamine.
- MLA
“Calamine.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/calamine. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Calamine. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/calamine
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See Also
Also in Dioscorides
Cantharides in Dioscorides · Wormwood, oil of in Dioscorides · Caraway broth in Dioscorides · Walnut, middle bark of in Dioscorides · everything Dioscorides names →
Drawing on the same sources: Dioscorides
Nearby in the alphabet
Camphor (The crystalline gum of Cinnamomum camphora) · Caesar’s mushroom (egg-like when young and seated in a white cup) · Butterbur (of the daisy family, with huge rhubarb-like leaves in damp places) · Caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyris) · Burdock · The Caravaca cross · Bryony (Bryonia dioica (now Bryonia cretica subsp)
Historical description, not medical advice.