# Compound fumitory (Fumaria officinalis)

**Fumoterra composta**

**Known today as.** A syrup or compound of fumitory, *Fumaria officinalis*, with other herbs.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: The anthranoid purgatives (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/anthranoid)

## What did Canale use it for?

A starting purge, and in syrup and water a preparative for melancholic patients (chs. 2–3).

## What does modern science say?

Fumitory is still accepted in European herbal medicine as a traditional remedy for fullness, slow digestion, and wind, and in animals its extracts even out a bile flow that has been raised or lowered by experiment; Culpeper counted it only a gentle purge.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **protopine**: an isoquinoline alkaloid of fumitory
- **fumaric acid**: 
- **cassia and tamarind pulp**: from Mesue’s greater syrup
- **myrobalans**: 

**Mechanism.** Fumitory is a bitter whose extracts in animals even out a disturbed bile flow, with light antispasmodic action, and it has an EMA monograph; Mesue’s greater syrup of fumitory purged by its myrobalans, which he counted gentle purges, and its cassia and tamarinds. Fumaric acid, found in fumitory, gave the fumaric acid esters registered for psoriasis in Germany since 1994, and dimethyl fumarate is now also approved in the United States for relapsing multiple sclerosis; it is made by laboratory synthesis.

**Dose.** Culpeper would give two ounces of the syrup by itself every morning, and liked it for its gentleness.

**Standing.** Fumitory herb has an EMA monograph (2011, revised 2023) for digestive disturbances; the compound syrup stood in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1653.

## What lore surrounds it?

The plant’s name carries its lore: *fumus terrae*, “earth smoke,” said to come from its whitish blue-green colour, like smoke rising from the ground, or, as Pliny is reported to have held, from its juice, which brings such tears that the sight dims as with smoke; and a legend had it that the plant grew not from seed but from vapours rising out of the earth.

## Sources

- EMA/HMPC (2023). *European Union herbal monograph on Fumaria officinalis L., herba*, Revision 1 (EMA/HMPC/367011/2021).
- Mesue (1589). *I libri di Gio. Mesue de i semplici purgativi, et delle medicine composte*, ed. G. Rossetto. Venice.
- Grieve, M. (1931). *A Modern Herbal*, “Fumitory.” London: Jonathan Cape.
- Wikipedia, “Fumaric acid,” en.wikipedia.org (read 2 October 2026).
- Wikipedia, “Dimethyl fumarate,” en.wikipedia.org (read 2 October 2026).
- Mrowietz, U., and Asadullah, K. (2005). “Dimethylfumarate for psoriasis: more than a dietary curiosity.” *Trends in Molecular Medicine* 11.

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

Historical description, not medical advice.