Witnessed by: TCM · Ayurveda

Cuttlebone, of the Sepiidae (Cephalopoda) family. A ten-armed coastal cephalopod carrying a chambered internal shell; the drug is that shell; native range: coastal seas of east Asia, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean; the bones gathered cast up on the tide line as much as taken from the catch. Globally recognized as hai piao xiao (海螵蛸), wu zei gu (烏鰂骨) in Chinese, samudra phena, abdhi phena in Sanskrit, and cuttlebone, os sepiae, sea-foam in English. The part used is the internal shell (cuttlebone), cleaned and dried; used whole, powdered, or calcined. A light, chalky, oval plate — hard and glazed on one face, soft and finely layered on the other, so light it floats; it scrapes to a soft white powder, faintly salty, with a slight fishy smell.

In this cross-tradition database, we analyze how this substance operates across world medicine systems — tracking its traditional tastes, temperatures, tissue affinities, post-digestive effects, and planetary correspondences across Ayurveda, Unani, and Western herbalism.

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