Wood sorrel

Feverish thirst with a craving for something sour and cooling to moisten a dry mouth

Bleeding, spongy gums of scorbutic type with general debility

Overview. Wood sorrel is a small, shade-loving woodland herb native to Europe, with delicate clover-like trifoliate leaves and pale nodding flowers, that has long been gathered for its refreshingly sour leaves. The fresh aerial parts were used in European folk and physiomedicalist practice as a cooling, moistening remedy for fevers, thirst, and scorbutic conditions, taken as an infusion, expressed juice, or made into a cooling drink. It has largely fallen out of professional use, being replaced by more concentrated sources of vitamin C and safer diuretics, but retains a place in older Western herbal texts as a simple household remedy.

Clinical Notes. In the physiomedicalist framework wood sorrel was regarded as a relaxant and refrigerant, useful where tissue was hot, dry, and irritated, such as in feverish thirst or an inflamed, dry mouth. The fresh leaves, chewed or infused, give an immediate sour, cooling sensation that was thought to encourage salivation and quench thirst in low fevers, and the plant was traditionally taken as a spring tonic for scorbutic gum disease and general debility, reflecting its natural vitamin C content.

Properties and Uses. This herb, freshly gathered, is well bruised in a mortar, and then subjected to strong pressure. The juice thus obtained is put in shallow earthen dishes, and evaporated in the sun. A soft extract is thus obtained without any fermentation whatever; whence this extract in no sense resembles oxalic acid, as Newton and some others have asserted.

Medical Uses and Dosage. This article, unless in great attenuation, is an unfit agent for internal administration, though it has been given in doses of three-quarters of a grain every 3 hours in diphtheria. Such a procedure is certainly dangerous, and an infusion of sorrel, sumac-bobs, and similar substances containing the acid in combination, would even be hazardous.