element

Fuller's earth

Elements

A absorbent clay used to scour wool and later to clarify oils. Not kaolin, and not ordinary mud.

  • Fuller's earth is used in Medicine.

    Pliny’s Natural History treats fuller’s earth among cleansing earths used to scour and dry. A Roman-era pharmacological/craft use of absorbent earth, not clay as the plastic drug earth and not kaolin as a later china-clay name.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    used in · sourced · documented

sources