Rumex alpinus
HRB-0251Entry “GREAT ROUND-LEAVED DOCK, OR BASTARD RHUBARB” in the 1850 textIn Culpeper’s 1652 first edition
Old claims, quoted verbatim: not medical advice. A warning sits above the claims and never hides them; no warning does not mean safe, only that no source here has flagged the plant.
What it does, in Culpeper: Purge
It purges the body of choler and phlegm, being either taken of itself, made into powder, and drank in a draught of white wine, or steeped therein all night, and taken fasting, or put among other purges, as shall be thought convenient, cleansing the stomach, liver, and blood, opening obstructions, and helping those griefs that come thereof, as the jaundice, dropsy, swelling of the spleen, tertain and daily agues, and pricking pains of the sides;
The roots of this Bastard Rhubarb are used in opening and purging diet-drinks, with other things, to open the liver, and to cleanse and cool the blood.
The seed thereof contrary doth bind the belly, and helps to stay any sort of lasks or bloody-flux.
It is also given for the pains and swellings in the head, for those that are troubled with melancholy, and helps the sciatica, gout, and the cramp.
It helps them that are troubled with the stone, provokes urine, and helps the dimness of the sight.
It purges the body of choler and phlegm, being either taken of itself, made into powder, and drank in a draught of white wine, or steeped therein all night, and taken fasting, or put among other purges, as shall be thought convenient, cleansing the stomach, liver, and blood, opening obstructions, and helping those griefs that come thereof, as the jaundice, dropsy, swelling of the spleen, tertain and daily agues, and pricking pains of the sides;
also foul ulcerous sores, and to allay the inflammation of them;
and being drank, heals the jaundice.
The root thereof helps the ruggedness of the nails, and being boiled in wine helps the swelling of the throat, commonly called the king’s evil, as also the swellings of the kernels of the ears.
The roots of this Bastard Rhubarb are used in opening and purging diet-drinks, with other things, to open the liver, and to cleanse and cool the blood.
It is also given for the pains and swellings in the head, for those that are troubled with melancholy, and helps the sciatica, gout, and the cramp.
The roots of this Bastard Rhubarb are used in opening and purging diet-drinks, with other things, to open the liver, and to cleanse and cool the blood.
The seed thereof taken, eases the gnawing and griping pains of the stomach, and takes away the loathing thereof unto meat.
It helps them that are troubled with the stone, provokes urine, and helps the dimness of the sight.
The root thereof helps the ruggedness of the nails, and being boiled in wine helps the swelling of the throat, commonly called the king’s evil, as also the swellings of the kernels of the ears.
gargled in the mouth, takes away the tooth ache;
It is used to heal those ulcers that happen in the eyes or eyelids, being steeped and strained;
Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, a new edition (London: Thomas Kelly, 1850). Project Gutenberg eBook #49513. SRC-CUL-1850
Quotations are verbatim from the 1850 text, line breaks joined. Modern research and the European regulator’s verdict on each claim are on the Concordance page, kept apart from this historical record.