Witnessed by: TCM · Ayurveda

Deer antler (Cervus nippon), of the Cervidae (Mammalia) family. The deer, which grows and sheds a branching bony antler each year; the drug is the hardened antler after the velvet is gone; native range: the sika deer of east Asia — Japan, Korea, northeast China and the Russian Far East — with the red deer across Eurasia; largely farmed for the drug. Globally recognized as lu jiao (鹿角) in Chinese, mṛga śṛṅga in Sanskrit, kalankombu in Tamil, and deer antler, deer horn in English. The part used is the mature ossified antler, shed or sawn — sliced, filed to shavings, or boiled out for its glue. Hard, heavy, greyish-brown branching bone, the cut face showing a dense outer rim and a coarse porous core; nearly odourless, faintly salty, and very slow to yield to the file.

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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