SAMIAN EARTH, in the materia medica, the name of two species of marble used in medicine, viz. 1. The white kind, called by the ancients collyrium samium; being astringent, and therefore good in diarrhoeas, dysenteries, and hemorrhages; they also used it externally in inflammations of all kinds. 2. The brownish white kind, called after samius, by Dioscorides: this also stands recommended as an astringent.