Saltpetre
Nitrum, sal petrae, the salt of the stone; niter
- Known today as
- Potassium nitrate, scraped as a white bloom from cellar walls, stables, and dung heaps.
- Kind
- Mineral, in 1 older authority
- Constituents
- potassium nitrate
- Poisoning
- Nitrate and the blue blood
- Earliest authority here
- Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
- In other databases
- Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: An older authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 30, 2026.
Saltpetre: what was it used for?
Cooling, for fevers, burning urine, and sore throats, in the sal prunella lozenges; and in pills (see Niter, pills of).
Saltpetre: what does modern science say?
Still in some toothpastes for sensitive teeth; a poison in large doses.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- A cooling salt in the Galenic sense because it dissolves endothermically; a diuretic; and, by its reduction to nitrite in the mouth, a source of nitric oxide that dilates vessels, the pathway now studied with beetroot juice. The sal prunella lozenge for sore throat was saltpetre fused with a little sulfur. The anaphrodisiac reputation of army saltpetre is a myth: it has no such action. At 5 per cent in toothpaste it is the standard home treatment for sensitive teeth, with evidence the reviews call variable.
- Toxic dose
- Grams give gastritis; 30 g has killed, with methaemoglobinaemia.
- Syndrome
- Nitrate and the blue blood
- Standing
- In toothpastes for dentine sensitivity (the FDA monograph allows 5 per cent); a curing salt (E252); the cardiovascular use is investigational.
- Lundberg, J. O., et al. (2008). “The nitrate–nitrite–nitric oxide pathway in physiology and therapeutics.” Nature Reviews Drug Discovery 7. Verified against its record · doi:10.1038/nrd2466
- Orchardson, R., and Gillam, D. G. (2006). “Managing dentin hypersensitivity.” Journal of the American Dental Association 137. Verified against its record · doi:10.14219/jada.archive.2006.0321
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.
Saltpetre: what lore surrounds it?
The ancient nitron was natron, a soda; the name passed to saltpetre, and with it much confusion, in the Middle Ages. It is the chief part of gunpowder.
Saltpetre: what did the older authorities say?
- Pliny
- Pliny's nitrum “in its properties does not greatly differ from salt,” and he complains that “the medical men who have written upon it were ignorant of its nature.” Native nitrum is found in Media, in Thrace, and best of all “at Litæ, in Macedonia, where it is known as ‘Chalastricum:’ it is white and pure, and closely resembles salt,” forming on a lake “for nine days, about the rising of the Dog-star.” In Egypt it is made artificially in nitre-beds flooded by the Nile, “tawny and full of stones.” What the ancients called nitrum is not the modern saltpetre, and Pliny's chapter is the classical root of the name rather than of the substance.
Sources
- Pomet, P. (1694). Histoire générale des drogues (English, A Compleat History of Druggs, 1712). Read in part · the text read
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 31.46, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. 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
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 4 cited: 1 read in part, 2 verified against its record, 1 primary text. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- said 5 per cent potassium nitrate toothpaste "quiets the nerve" and is FDA-approved; the cited review (Orchardson and Gillam, 2006) calls the evidence variable. Softened.
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 30, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Saltpetre.” 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/saltpetre.
- MLA
“Saltpetre.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/saltpetre. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Saltpetre. (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/saltpetre
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See Also
Poisoned alike: nitrate and the blue blood
Sharing potassium nitrate
Also in Pliny the Elder
Savin in Pliny the Elder · Sage in Pliny the Elder · Scammony in Pliny the Elder · Rue in Pliny the Elder · everything Pliny the Elder names →
Drawing on the same sources: Pomet, Lundberg
Nearby in the alphabet
Sandalwood (The heartwood of Santalum album) · Salt · Sassafras (The root bark of Sassafras albidum) · The SATOR square (A five-line Latin word square that can be read in four directions) · Saffron milk cap (An orange mushroom of pine woods that weeps carrot-colored milk)
Historical description, not medical advice.