Shi Gao (Gypsum) (Gypsum fibrosum — mineral)
What Is Shi Gao (Gypsum)?
Botanists and formularies know Shi Gao (Gypsum) as Gypsum fibrosum — mineral. The material in circulation is mineral. Shi Gao (Gypsum) is the name in everyday use, while Gypsum fibrosum — mineral is the name that identifies it unambiguously across languages, trade documents and safety literature. In the hand it reads as odorless — a practical marker of freshness and correct identification.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shi Gao (Gypsum) is a long-standing entry. It appears in the classical Chinese materia medica, where entries were organised by taste, temperature and the channels a substance was said to enter, and it has been carried forward through centuries of formula literature. Beyond its practical use it carries cultural associations — TCM: 'White Tiger' heat-clearing.
Today most searches for Shi Gao (Gypsum) come from people reading about eczema, burns, fever and bone health, or checking how it sits alongside a medication they already take. The use most often documented in the literature is TCM: clears heat from the Qi level in high fever, followed by topical (calcined) for burns and eczema.
How Does Shi Gao (Gypsum) Work?
Shi Gao (Gypsum) works as a mixture rather than a single isolated compound, and its profile is usually described by the class of constituents present in mineral rather than by one marker molecule.
Chinese medicine describes substances by temperature, flavour and channel entered, and rarely uses a plant alone — it is weighted inside a formula against other ingredients. That older description was arrived at without chemistry, and it does not map neatly onto constituent names — but it records centuries of observation about dose, preparation and who the plant suited.
Published research is sparse, so most of what is documented here comes from traditional use and preliminary laboratory work, and this profile cites 1 source. Reported findings centre on calcium sulfate dihydrate CaSO₄·2H₂O. Where research exists, it examines TCM: clears heat from the Qi level in high fever and topical (calcined) for burns and eczema. These are areas of study, not established outcomes, and results differ by preparation and dose.
How the plant is prepared changes what you actually get. Its constituents move readily into water and alcohol — so a preparation made in another medium will not carry the same fraction of the plant, which is why traditional recipes specify one over another.
What makes Shi Gao (Gypsum) distinct is the combination rather than any one molecule: the same compound classes appear in other botanicals, but their ratio here — and the mineral they are drawn from — is what the traditional and research literature both describe.
Because these constituents are processed by the same pathways that handle many medicines, Shi Gao (Gypsum) is documented as interacting with antibiotics, thyroid medications. That is a question of shared metabolism rather than of potency, and it is the main reason the plant is listed in interaction references at all.
Dose, plant part and growing conditions all shift the constituent profile, so two products carrying the name Shi Gao (Gypsum) can differ substantially; this is why reference entries specify mineral and, where they exist, standardisation markers.