Rheum
Made from rhubarb root — the pie plant whose anthraquinone laxative is still official in pharmacopoeias, and the classical remedy of the sour-smelling child.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of a child who is sour all over: sour smell of the whole body, sour-smelling stool and sweat, colic and restlessness with the teething or the nursing, an irritable, dissatisfied little one whose digestion turns everything sour. The sour-child remedy: that is Rheum.
The substance, in plain words
Rhubarb is the great pie plant of the kitchen garden, its root a genuine anthraquinone laxative — official in the pharmacopoeias to this day, one of the oldest working drugs in the dispensary. The same root, in the proving, gave the remedy the sour-child portrait that every old nursery chapter records.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Irritable and dissatisfied. The keynote of the mind: the cross, dissatisfied child — nothing pleases, everything is protested.
- Restlessness. Tossing, fretting, worse in the evening and at night.
- Anxiety of the parents. The books note the household's worry over the sour, failing little one.
The body
- Sour smell of the whole child. The keynote: a sour, fermenting odour of the body, the stool and the sweat — the books' great characteristic.
- Sour stool. Sour, fermenting, exhausting evacuations — worse from nursing or fruit.
- Colic and restlessness. Griping pains with the restlessness; the child draws up the legs and cries.
- Teething diarrhoea. The sour looseness of teething — the books' nursery pairing.
- Worse cold damp and night. Wet weather and the night worsen the sourness and the colic.
- Better for warmth and the stool passing. Warmth and the evacuation ease the colic for a while.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| cold damp weather; night; fruit and milk; teething. | warmth; the stool passing; rest. |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Digestive tract of the infant, general nutrition, teething, skin.
Where the classical picture comes from
The official laxative root's proving gave the sour-child portrait; Rheum became the classical remedy of the sour-smelling, colicky, teething infant — the same root the dispensary used to move the same bowel.
The substance in real medicine Pharmacology
What this section is: the pharmacology and toxicology of the source substance. It is not clinical evidence that a homeopathic preparation of it treats any condition. What controlled trials do and do not show is set out on the Evidence page.
Rhubarb root is a genuine, still-official anthraquinone laxative — the same chemistry as senna and the yellow dock of this library, working the bowel by the same mechanism, and still listed in modern pharmacopoeias. The sour child it portrayed is now paediatric gastroenterology and nutrition's territory; the root's laxative chemistry remains real, useful and honest.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Chamomilla | Cross teething child | Chamomilla is the raging teether with one hot cheek; Rheum the sour-smelling one. |
| Magnesia carbonica | Colic worse milk | Mag-carb's colic is worse milk; Rheum's is the sour fermenting whole child. |
| Podophyllum-peltatum | Infant diarrhea | Podophyllum's gushes at dawn with prolapse; Rheum's is sour and fermenting. |
| Borax | The nursery pair | Borax is the aphthous mouth with the motion dread; Rheum the sour smell and the colic. |