Rumex acetosa
HRB-0276Entry “SORREL” 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.
Historical correspondence. Ruled by Venus, by Culpeper. A traditional astrological assignment, kept apart from the modern evidence; it is not a finding.
What it does, in Culpeper: Counter-poison
Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues;
to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs:
Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues;
For it resists the putrefaction of the blood, kills worms, and is a cordial to the heart, which the seed doth more effectually, being more drying and binding, and thereby stays the hot fluxes of women’s courses, or of humours in the bloody flux, or flux of the stomach.
The decoction of the flowers made with wine and drank, helps the black jaundice, as also the inward ulcers of the body and bowels.
Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues;
The decoction of the roots is taken to help the jaundice, and to expel the gravel and the stone in the reins or kidneys.
Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues;
The decoction of the roots is taken to help the jaundice, and to expel the gravel and the stone in the reins or kidneys.
Both roots and seeds, as well as the herb, are held powerful to resist the poison of the scorpion.
to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs:
The decoction of the roots is taken to help the jaundice, and to expel the gravel and the stone in the reins or kidneys.
The decoction of the flowers made with wine and drank, helps the black jaundice, as also the inward ulcers of the body and bowels.
For it resists the putrefaction of the blood, kills worms, and is a cordial to the heart, which the seed doth more effectually, being more drying and binding, and thereby stays the hot fluxes of women’s courses, or of humours in the bloody flux, or flux of the stomach.
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.