# Calamine

**Cadmia*, *tutia*, tutty*

**Known today as.** Zinc carbonate and zinc oxide.

Kind: Mineral

## What was it used for?

Drying and cooling, in ointments and powders for the eyes, ulcers, and itching.

## 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 and toxicology

- **zinc oxide**: 
- **iron(III) oxide**: the pink

**Mechanism.** Zinc oxide is mildly astringent and antiseptic, and cools by evaporation as the lotion dries.

**Dose.** Non-toxic on the skin.

**Standing.** On the WHO list of essential medicines.

## 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.

## 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.
- World Health Organization, *Model List of Essential Medicines*.
- World Health Organization, *Model List of Essential Medicines*.

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*Calamine.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/calamine

Historical description, not medical advice.