Glass powder
Polvere di vetro
- Known today as
- Powdered glass.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- silica, soda and lime, lead oxide
- Earliest authority here
- The old pharmacy
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
- In the Canale glossary
- On the Manner of Discerning and Healing the Bewitched, Appendix A: Part Three, Chapter 9: Anointings
Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Caution. Hazardous in some form or dose; see the modern assessment below.
Glass powder: what did Canale use it for?
In the distilled oil for hexes (ch. 9).
Glass powder: what does modern science say?
Inert; in the distillation it served only as a filler. Finely powdered glass passes through the gut without harm, as Paré found; coarse fragments can cut. In a distillation it is inert, and served, as Canale’s recipe shows, to carry the other ingredients.
Glass powder: is it poisonous?
Yes, in some form or dose. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- silicaamorphous silicon dioxide, 70 per cent
- soda and lime
- lead oxidein crystal glass
- Mechanism
- Finely ground glass is inert in the gut and passes; coarsely broken glass cuts. The poisoner’s ground glass is largely a myth, since a powder fine enough to hide in food does no harm, which the toxicologists of the nineteenth century showed by experiment. In a distilled oil it contributes nothing, being non-volatile.
- Toxic dose
- Fine powder is inert; shards lacerate.
- Standing
- A material of the glazier.
- Christison, R. (1845). A Treatise on Poisons, 4th ed., “Of powdered glass.” Book, not indexed
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.
Glass powder: what lore surrounds it?
The belief that ground glass kills was tested by Ambroise Paré, who fed it to a dog and found no harm; it was nevertheless a stock accusation in the poisoning trials of Italy and France.
Glass powder: what did the older authorities say?
- The old pharmacy
- Powdered glass stood in the antidotaries as a drying, abrasive medicine for the teeth and for the stone, and Dioscorides gives burnt glass for the teeth; it was also a famous poison in the legends of the Renaissance, swallowed in food.
Sources
- Paré, A. (1575). Œuvres, on poisons. Primary text
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
- 2 cited: 1 primary text, 1 book, not indexed.
- 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
“Glass powder.” 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/glass-powder.
- MLA
“Glass powder.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/glass-powder. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Glass powder. (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/glass-powder
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See Also
Sharing silica, lead oxide
Nearby in the alphabet
Glauber’s salt · Ginseng · Goat’s rue (French lilac) · Ginger (The rhizome of Zingiber officinale) · Goji berry · Ghost pipe · Gold leaf (Beaten gold) · Garlic (Allium sativum)
Historical description, not medical advice.