# Cordial flowers and fruits

**Fiori e frutti cordiali**

**Known today as.** A standard apothecary decoction of “heart-strengthening” flowers (usually borage, bugloss, violet, rose) and fruits (in the London College’s decoction of flowers and fruits, figs, prunes, jujubes, and tamarinds).

Kind: Compound

## What did Canale use it for?

The liquid base of several draughts (chs. 2, 4).

## What does modern science say?

A vehicle; Culpeper says the decoction strengthens the lungs and helps obstruction. The category of “cordials” rests on the old physiology of the heart and the vital spirits.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **borage and bugloss**: with the pyrrolizidine alkaloids of borage
- **violet and rose**: 
- **figs, prunes, jujubes, tamarinds**: the fruits

**Mechanism.** The four cordial flowers of the London College, borage, bugloss, roses, and violets, boiled with figs, prunes, jujubes, and tamarinds as the liquid base of draughts: a sweet vehicle, the tamarinds mildly laxative; the cheer was in the name.

**Dose.** A sweet decoction; borage carries pyrrolizidine alkaloids, whose intake from medicines taken by mouth German rules have set at 1 µg a day for at most six weeks a year.

**Standing.** A vehicle of the old pharmacy.

## Sources

- EMA/HMPC (2021). *Public statement on the use of herbal medicinal products containing toxic, unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PAs)* (EMA/HMPC/893108/2011 Rev. 1).
- Anthonie, F. (1616). *The Apologie, or Defence of a Verity Heretofore Published Concerning a Medicine Called Aurum Potabile*. London: John Legatt. Text Creation Partnership edition A20238.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacopoeia Londinensis*.

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*Cordial flowers and fruits.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cordial-flowers-and-fruits

Historical description, not medical advice.