# Diaphenicon

**Known today as.** A purgative electuary of dates, with turpeth, scammony, and spices.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: The drastic resins (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/drastic-resin)

## What did Canale use it for?

In the purge for phlegmatic patients (ch. 4; see note XXXI).

## What does modern science say?

Its scammony and turbith made it effective and harsh.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **scammonin**: the resin of scammony, the purge
- **turpeth resin**: 
- **dates, almonds, and penids**: the bulk
- **pepper, ginger, and rue**: the warming correctives

**Mechanism.** An electuary of dates with scammony and turpeth: two resin purgatives, scammony drastic and quick, turpeth like jalap but slower, given to phlegmatic patients because turpeth was held to purge more phlegm than choler. The dates and penids, Mesue’s annotator says, went into purgatives for their viscosity, and the spices corrected the scammony.

**Dose.** Culpeper gave half an ounce, chiefly in clysters; the dose of scammony resin in 1911 was 3 to 8 grains, and large doses set up acute irritation of the gut.

**Standing.** In the London Pharmacopoeia of 1653.

## Sources

- Mesue (1589). *I libri di Gio. Mesue de i semplici purgativi, et delle medicine composte*, ed. G. Rossetto. Venice.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacopoeia Londinensis*, “Diaphoenicon.”

---

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

Historical description, not medical advice.