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RESEARCH PRODUCT

The Use of Medicinal Clay from Silesia “Terra sigillata Silesiaca”, Central Europe - A New Chance for Natural Medicine?

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Silesia is a region in Central Europe with beneficial conditions for the presence of clay, including those with potential therapeutic efficacies, due to its very diverse and mosaic geological landscape. The first use of clay deposits in medicine in Silesia, “terra sigillata Silesiaca”, has been dated to 1550 AD, and the oldest written information related to this use has been dated to 1586 AD. Medicinal clay is formed by the accumulation of a mixture of minerals such as smectite, bentonite, montmorillonite, kaolinite, illite, and metahaloisite, with impurities of other minerals and fractions, resulting from the chemical weathering of rocks and the sedimentation of detritus. The quantitative ratios of individual minerals are very diverse, similar to the diverse chemical composition, and mainly depend on the type of rocks from which the clay was weathered, the sedimentation conditions, and the processes that occur after sedimentation. Medicinal clays derived from basalt weathering have different properties to those derived from the weathering of granite, amphibolite, gneisse, or limestone. Although clays were used for medicinal purposes for millennia, they remained largely unexamined in terms of their mechanism of action and potential benefits in medicine. Recently, however, there has been an increased interest in the geochemical properties of these minerals with respect to antibacterial and anti-inflammatory action. Currently, in 2017-2018, two historic healing clay “terra sigillata Silesiaca” deposits have been confirmed in Silesia, which, after previous research, may be used in natural medicine.