Iron and steel
Ferrum, chalybs
- Known today as
- The metal, given as filings in wine, as its rust, or in chalybeate spring waters.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- ferrous sulfate, ferrous fumarate
- Poisoning
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
- Earliest authority here
- Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689)
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Iron and steel: what was it used for?
Against the green sickness (chlorosis) and weakness of the blood.
Iron and steel: what does modern science say?
It works: chlorosis was iron-deficiency anemia, and iron is still its treatment.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Iron is the centre of haemoglobin; the salt is absorbed in the duodenum and the body cannot excrete an excess, so overdose corrodes the gut and then poisons the liver and heart.
- Toxic dose
- In a child, 20 mg per kilogram of elemental iron brings symptoms, 60 mg can kill: the commonest fatal poisoning of children in the United States in the 1980s and 90s, from a parent’s tablets.
- Syndrome
- Mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
- Standing
- Ferrous salts are on the WHO list of essential medicines; iron deficiency is the commonest nutritional disorder in the world.
- Centers for Disease Control (1993). “Toddler deaths resulting from ingestion of iron supplements, Los Angeles, 1992–1993.” MMWR 42. 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.
Iron and steel: what lore surrounds it?
Cold iron was the old defense against fairies and witches: a knife under the threshold, a horseshoe over the door.
English legend gives the horseshoe over the door to Saint Dunstan, a smith before he was Archbishop of Canterbury: asked by the Devil to shoe his cloven hoof, Dunstan nailed the shoe on so painfully that the Devil begged for its removal, and was released only on his promise never to enter a house where a horseshoe hung. Iron railings around graveyards carried the same logic in reverse, keeping the dead in rather than evil out.
Iron and steel: what did the older authorities say?
- Thomas Sydenham
- Prescribed steel for the green sickness, one of the few remedies of his age that did exactly what it claimed.
Sources
- Sydenham, T., Works, on chlorosis. Book, not indexed
- Wikipedia, “Iron in folklore.” Book, not indexed
In Symbols of the Psyche
Iron: what it stood for in alchemy and in analytical psychology.
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
- 3 cited: 2 book, not indexed, 1 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
- Chicago
“Iron and steel.” 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/iron.
- MLA
“Iron and steel.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 25 Sept. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/iron. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Iron and steel. (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/iron
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See Also
Poisoned alike: mercury, arsenic, lead, and antimony
James’s powder · Cinnabar · Litharge · Aurum potabile · Orpiment and realgar · Armenian stone, pills of · Passarino’s white powder · Antimony · the syndrome, with all of them →
Also in Thomas Sydenham
Laudanum in Thomas Sydenham · Opium poppy in Thomas Sydenham · everything Thomas Sydenham names →
Drawing on the same sources: Sydenham, Wikipedia
Nearby in the alphabet
Ipecacuanha (The root of Carapichea ipecacuanha of Brazil) · Iva (Ajuga iva) · INRI · Jack-o’-lantern · Indian electuary, greater and lesser (the greater and the lesser) · Jalap · Indian and Arabian pills (Two named compound pills of the Arabic-Latin tradition)
Historical description, not medical advice.