Rumex crispus
Made from yellow dock — the wayside dock whose anthraquinone roots share chemistry with the senna family of laxatives.
The whole picture, in one breath
Think of a cough that lives in a single spot: a tickling, dry, teasing irritation low in the throat-pit, just above the collar, that explodes the instant cool air is inhaled or the throat is uncovered. Covering the mouth stops it; uncovering starts it. One-spot tickle, worse for breathing cold air: that is Rumex.
The substance, in plain words
Yellow dock is the curly-leaved dock of roadsides and meadows. Its root carries anthraquinones — the same laxative chemistry as senna — which explains the old cough-and-bowel picture; prepared fresh, it became the classical 'throat-pit tickle' cough remedy.
The traditional picture Classical sources
The inner state
- Low spirits with the cough. Gloomy, despondent, worse evenings; anxiety about health.
- Irritability from disturbance. The books note crossness when the cough is interrupted or the room air changes.
- Mental weariness. Indifference and dullness accompanying the long-drawn winter coughs.
The body
- Tickle in the throat-pit. The keynote: a dry, teasing, incessant tickle low behind the breastbone, touched off by the slightest inspiration.
- Worse breathing cold air. Cover the mouth and the cough stops; uncover and it begins — air temperature, not effort, is the trigger.
- Worse lying on the left side. And worse in the evening, from 11 p.m. to about 2 a.m.; also worse from talking or change of air.
- Raw mucous membranes. Pain behind the sternum as if raw; scraped sensation with scanty mucus.
- Chronic winter cough. The books' standby for the hack of autumn and winter, worse every cold season.
- Bowel link. Alternate cough and loose morning stool — the anthraquinone thread through the picture.
Modalities (worse and better factors)
| Worse from ⬇ | Better from ⬇ |
|---|---|
| cold air inhaled; uncovering; lying on the left side; evening and 11 p.m.–2 a.m.; change of air. | covering the mouth and throat; warmth; a warm room. |
Where it acts (organ affinities)
Respiratory mucosa (throat-pit and trachea), skin (itching eruptions), bowels.
Where the classical picture comes from
The fresh root's anthraquinone irritation produced the dry raw throat and loose-bowel picture of the proving; clinically Rumex was built on exactly the cold-air-triggered winter cough the old books describe.
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.
Anthraquinone laxatives — senna, cascara — are genuine, widely used modern medicines, and dock-root chemistry belongs to the same family. Yellow dock extracts are also sold as herbal bitters with unproven but studied effects on digestion. The plant's pharmacology is modest but real.
Look-alikes (how the classical authors told it apart)
| Remedy | Looks similar because… | Tells it apart because… |
|---|---|---|
| Spongia tosta | Dry cough | Spongia's cough is deep, barking and laryngeal; Rumex' is a superficial throat-pit tickle set off by cold air. |
| Drosera rotundifolia | Night cough, worse lying | Drosera is paroxysmal, gagging, after midnight; Rumex is tickling and air-temperature-keyed. |
| Arsenicum album | Winter cough, restlessness | Arsenicum is anxious, chilly and thirsting; Rumex is gloomy, ticklish and air-sensitive. |
| Phosphorus | Raw chest, evening cough | Phosphorus bleeds, craves ice water and is twilight-worse; Rumex has the one-spot tickle and cold-air trigger. |