# Caraway broth (Carum carvi)

**Brodo di carvi**

**Known today as.** A broth of caraway seed, *Carum carvi*.

Kind: Compound

## What did Canale use it for?

As a vehicle for the powder (ch. 6).

## What does modern science say?

Carminative. The EMA accepts caraway only as a traditional remedy for bloating and wind, finding no clinical trials of adequate quality for the fruit; its extracts relax the guinea-pig gut in the laboratory, and a capsule of peppermint and caraway oils eased functional dyspepsia better than placebo in one controlled trial. The British Pharmaceutical Codex of 1911 still combined caraway with purgatives, so the broth was a fitting vehicle for a purging powder.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **carvone**: 50–65 per cent of the oil
- **limonene**: 

**Mechanism.** Caraway extracts relax the isolated gut of the guinea pig, and caraway oil is in the peppermint-and-caraway capsule (Enteroplant) that eased functional dyspepsia in a controlled trial; a broth of it was a palatable vehicle for the powder, as distilled caraway water was still “an excellent vehicle for children’s medicines” in 1911.

**Dose.** A food.

**Standing.** Caraway fruit has an EMA monograph (2015) for digestive disorders such as bloating and wind.

## What lore surrounds it?

Caraway comfits, the seeds crusted in white sugar, were served to the table with fruit, as Parkinson says in Grieve’s quotation of him, and Justice Shallow offers Falstaff “a last year’s pippin of mine own graffing, with a dish of caraways”; the seed was held to keep lovers from proving fickle and fowls and pigeons from straying, and tame pigeons were given baked caraway dough in their cote.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dioscorides.** Gives *karos*, the caraway seed, as urinary, warming, good for the stomach, pleasant to the mouth, and digestive, mixed usefully in antidotes; its root, boiled, is eaten like parsnip.

## Sources

- Shakespeare, *Henry IV, Part 2* V.iii.
- Dioscorides, *De materia medica* III.
- EMA/HMPC (2015). *Assessment report on Carum carvi L., fructus and Carum carvi L., aetheroleum* (EMA/HMPC/715093/2013).
- Grieve, M. (1931). *A Modern Herbal*, “Caraway.” London: Jonathan Cape.
- EMA/HMPC (2015). *European Union herbal monograph on Carum carvi L., fructus* (EMA/HMPC/715092/2013).
- May, B., et al. (2000). “Efficacy and tolerability of a fixed combination of peppermint oil and caraway oil in patients suffering from functional dyspepsia.” *Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics* 14.

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*Caraway broth.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/caraway-broth

Historical description, not medical advice.