Abalone is a highly prized seafood, which is often viewed as one of the luxurious dishes. Do you ever look over the abalone shell when you eat it? If you do, you will find that its inner surface emits a dazzling pearly luster. No wonder it is an ideal jewelry-making raw material. Beside, you may not know the fact that it is also viewed as a rare and precious Chinese herb called Shi Jue Ming in Pinyin. It is named so for at least two reasons – abalone shells are first used for the treatment of various eye diseases in traditional Chinese medicine, plus it adds the "Shi" in front of it to indicate its mineral composition and tell it from another similar herbal medicine known as Cassia Seed (Jue Ming Zi). Put it in modern medical terms, it treats cataract, glaucoma, conjunctivitis, night blindness and so on.

Medicinally it refers to the shells of genus Haliotis in the family Haliotidae, including Haliotis diversicolor Reeve, Haliotis discus hannai Ino, Haliotis ovina Gmelin, Haliotis ruber (Leach), Haliotis asinina Linnaeus, or Haliotis laevigata (Donovan). And other common name of this herb include ear shells, sea ears, Concha Haliotidis, muttonfish or muttonshells, ormer, venus's-ears, pāua, Haliotis Shell, Qian Li Guang, and others. In China it is mainly produced in provinces of Guangdong, Hainan, Shandong, Fujian, and Liaoning. It is usually captured in summer and autumn. And the following processing steps are to remove the meat, wash, and dry. It is used broken and raw/calcined in TCM.

Abalone Shell

ABALONE SHELL HEALTH BENEFITS
In the west, it is mostly used in art industry to make seashell crafts or jewelry, such as abalone shell engagement ring, beads, necklace, buttons, bracelet, cabochon, hair clips, pendant, and so on. But in the east, especially in China, it is a valuable medicine, which is listed as a top-grade herb in the Ming Yi Bie Lu (Miscellaneous Records of Famous Physicians). In the past this herb was scarce due to the scarcity of abalone and overfishing. But today it is no longer rare with the development of aquaculture. As a matter of fact it is becoming a healthy diet medication for coastal people.

As mentioned previously, the inner surface of the abalone shell emits dazzling multicolored pearl-like luster, which in fact is the secreted abalone nacre and also the secret of its amazing healing properties. From the perspective of Chinese medicine, many eye disorders are mainly caused by flaming up of the liver-fire and high blood pressure is also mostly caused by hyperactivity of liver-yang. The corresponding remedy is to calm the liver and suppress yang. Actually that is where it gets in since it is considered an effective drug of clearing liver and improving vision. That explains well why it is commonly used in the treatment of hypertension-induced dizziness, Headache, and the like. From the modern medical analysis, its main active ingredients are calcium carbonate, keratin, and choline contained in nacre. More importantly, the keratin can be hydrolyzed by stomach acid into 16 kinds of amino acids, which is the equivalent of parasympathomimetic drugs that can reduce visual disturbances and urinary discomfort, and lower blood pressure.

Both abalone shell and cassia seed can treat liver-heat induced red painful swollen eyes and a faint cloudy spot on the cornea by removing liver-fire for improving eyesight. However, these are two different Chinese herbs though both of them are called "Jue Ming". The former is salty in flavor and cold and heavy in nature, which makes an excellent herb of nourishing liver yin, cool liver, and tranquilizing liver. So, it is suitable for both excess and deficit types of eye problems and mostly used in photophobia, dim eyesight, glaucoma, and more. In comparison, the latter is bitter in flavor and cold in nature, which makes it an herb that is better at clearing liver-heat for improving vision. Therefore, it is more commonly used for the red painful swollen eyes due to excess fire in liver channel.