# Vinegar of the four thieves

*Four Thieves’ Vinegar*

**Known today as.** Vinegar steeped with herbs and garlic: in Gattefossé’s recipe, as Garcia gives it, angelica, camphor, cloves, garlic, marjoram, meadowsweet, wormwood, and sage. Grieve calls garlic its principal ingredient.

Kind: Compound

## What was it used for?

Put on the hands and face against the plague.

## What does modern science say?

Vinegar kills food-borne bacteria in the laboratory; some of the herbs, Garcia notes, are flea repellents.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **acetic acid**: not less than 4 per cent
- **allyl sulphide**: from the garlic
- **camphor**: in Gattefossé’s recipe

**Mechanism.** Vinegar is bacteriostatic and bactericidal to food-borne bacteria, *E. coli* O157:H7 among them, and more so when warm; some of the herbs, Garcia notes, are flea repellents.

**Dose.** A skin wash.

**Standing.** Once very popular, by Garcia’s account.

## What lore surrounds it?

Grieve tells it of Marseille in 1722: four thieves, protected by the liberal use of aromatic vinegar during the plague, plundered the bodies of its victims with complete security.

## Sources

- Grieve, M. (1931). *A Modern Herbal*.
- Garcia, S. (2020). Pandemics and traditional plant-based remedies: a historical-botanical review in the era of COVID19. *Frontiers in Plant Science* 11: 571042.
- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911). London: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Monographs as transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, henriettes-herb.com.
- Entani, E., et al. (1998). “Antibacterial action of vinegar against food-borne pathogenic bacteria including *Escherichia coli* O157:H7.” *Journal of Food Protection* 61.

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*Vinegar of the four thieves.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/four-thieves-vinegar

Historical description, not medical advice.