# Catmint (Nepeta cataria)

**Nepita**

**Known today as.** *Nepeta cataria* or calamint, *Clinopodium nepeta*.

Kind: Plant

## What did Canale use it for?

In the bath for cold complexions (ch. 7).

## What does modern science say?

Mildly aromatic.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **nepetalactone**: the iridoid that excites cats
- **thymol**: 
- **carvacrol**: 

**Mechanism.** Nepetalactone binds olfactory receptors in cats and acts, it was shown in 2021, as a mosquito repellent through the TRPA1 irritant channel; in people the tea is a mild carminative and diaphoretic. Nothing in it is sedative in any measured dose.

**Dose.** Safe; smoked, it does not intoxicate, a 1969 report notwithstanding.

**Standing.** No monograph; the repellent action is the one with modern evidence.

## What lore surrounds it?

Catnip’s effect on the domestic cat, the rubbing, rolling, and brief euphoria, has been observed and written about since antiquity, one of the most widely recognized plant-and-animal associations of the Western tradition.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Counts catmint with wild mint, endive, and pennyroyal among the plants that “will grow even without any cultivation”; it is kept for use in the larder like mint and pennyroyal; and a wine was made of it, two handfuls to a cadus of must.

**Culpeper.** An herb of Venus: “Nep is generally used for women to procure their courses,” taken inwardly or in a bath or its fumes; it is of special use for windiness of the stomach and belly, for colds, coughs, and shortness of breath; the green herb bruised and applied for two or three hours eases the pains of the piles.

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Catmint.” As published on botanical.com.
- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 19.37, 19.47, 14.19, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *The Complete Herbal*, “Nep, Or Catmint.” Project Gutenberg #49513.
- Melo, N., et al. (2021). “The irritant receptor TRPA1 mediates the mosquito repellent effect of catnip.” *Current Biology* 31.
- Uenoyama, R., et al. (2021). “The characteristic response of domestic cats to plant iridoids allows them to gain chemical defense against mosquitoes.” *Science Advances* 7.

---

*Catmint.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/catmint

Historical description, not medical advice.