Witnessed by: TCM

Hearth clay, of the clay / earth (soil from the floor of a wood-fired stove, baked yellow by years of fire) family. Irregular hard yellow-brown to reddish lumps of fire-baked clay; native range: the clay floor at the heart of an old wood-burning kitchen stove, dug out where the fire has stood longest. Globally recognized as 伏龍肝 fu long gan, 灶心土 zao xin tu in Chinese, 伏竜肝 fukuryūkan in Japanese, and hearth clay, oven earth, dragon-liver earth in English. The part used is the baked clay from the centre of the hearth, crushed. Ochre-yellow to reddish-brown, hard but crumbling to a fine earthy powder, clinging to the tongue, with a faint smoky smell of long burning.

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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