# Peppermint *Brandy mint; *Mentha × piperita* of Linnaeus; the *Mentha piperitis sapore*, pepper-tasting mint, of the London Pharmacopoeia of 1721* **Known today as.** *Mentha × piperita*, a mint of moist places and stream banks across Europe, often escaped from cultivation, with stalked, finely toothed, nearly smooth leaves, square purplish stems two to four feet high, and whorls of small reddish-violet flowers that “rarely bear seeds.” Its oil, in every part of the plant, tastes hot on the tongue and then cold, “caused by the menthol it contains.” Leaf and distilled oil are both medicines. Kind: Plant > **Caution.** The oil is not for people with liver disease, cholangitis, achlorhydria, gallstones, or other disorders of the bile ducts, and heartburn or hiatus hernia may worsen; the gut capsules must be swallowed whole, and antacids and acid-reducing drugs taken at the same time can release the oil too early. Menthol can cause reflex stoppage of breathing and spasm of the larynx in small children, so the oil is contraindicated under two years and in children with a history of seizures, and must not go on broken or irritated skin. Overdose can cause severe gut symptoms, convulsions, loss of consciousness, and disturbed heart rhythm. Use in pregnancy and breast-feeding is not recommended without medical advice. ## What was it used for? For the gut above all. “Peppermint oil is the most extensively used of all the volatile oils, both medicinally and commercially,” Grieve wrote, and its antispasmodic action, more marked than in any other oil, “greatly adds to its power of relieving pains arising in the alimentary canal”: dyspepsia, flatulence, colic, cramp, cholera and diarrhoea. It was given with purgatives to stop griping and used to disguise the taste of other drugs; the tea was taken at the first sign of a cold, and with elder flowers for influenza; menthol was rubbed on the temples for neuralgic headache and inhaled for the chest. ## What does modern science say? The European Medicines Agency’s herbal committee accepts peppermint oil on clinical evidence, as ‘well-established use’: for minor spasms of the gut, flatulence, and abdominal pain, “especially in patients with irritable bowel syndrome,” and for mild tension-type headache. For coughs and colds, local muscle pain, and itching of intact skin, and the leaf for indigestion and flatulence, it accepts traditional use only (monographs of 2020). The oil is chiefly menthol, 30 to 55 per cent, and menthone. A 2022 meta-analysis of ten trials in 1,030 patients with irritable bowel syndrome found the oil “superior to placebo,” but with more adverse events, and the quality of evidence “very low.” Pooled studies of oil given during colonoscopy found the colon relaxed, with fewer spasms. ## Pharmacognosy and toxicology - **menthol**: 30 to 55 per cent of the oil; the cause, Grieve says, of the cold that follows the heat on the tongue - **menthone**: **Mechanism.** Pooled studies of the oil given during colonoscopy found the colon relaxed, with fewer spasms. Menthol can cause reflex stoppage of breathing and spasm of the larynx in small children. **Standing.** European Union herbal monographs (2020): well-established use of the oil for gut spasm, especially in irritable bowel syndrome, and for tension headache; traditional use, “exclusively based upon long-standing use,” for other purposes and of the leaf. ## What lore surrounds it? The mints share a myth: the nymph Minthe, Folkard tells from Ovid, was beloved of Pluto, and Proserpine, finding out her husband’s infidelity, turned her into the herb that bears her name. Mint was *herba bona* and *herba sancta* of old, woven into garlands for brides, later dedicated to the Virgin; it was strewn in churches; women of the Abruzzi, meeting a mint plant on a walk, would bruise a leaf between their fingers to ensure that Christ would help them on the day of their death; and in Holstein youths carried mint at peasants’ funerals. Pliny held that “the smell of Mint doth stir up the minde and taste to a greedy desire of meat.” ## What did the older authorities say? **Pliny, as Grieve reports him.** The Greeks and Romans, she says, “crowned themselves with Peppermint at their feasts and adorned their tables with its sprays,” and their cooks flavoured sauces and wines with its essence; though she notes that some writers doubt whether either mint of the Greek physicians was the modern peppermint. **Mrs. M. Grieve.** It is in the Icelandic pharmacopoeias of the thirteenth century, but only came into general use in western European medicine about the middle of the eighteenth, first in England. Ray first recognised it as a distinct species in 1696, and it entered the London Pharmacopoeia in 1721. Commercial growing at Mitcham in Surrey dates from about 1750, and “English oil is incomparably the best.” ## Sources - Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Mints.” As published on botanical.com. - Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Mint.” Project Gutenberg, 44638. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Menthae piperitae folium (peppermint leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/572705/2014, 15 January 2020. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Menthae piperitae aetheroleum (Peppermint oil)*. EMA/HMPC/522410/2013, 15 January 2020. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Menthae piperitae folium*. EMA/HMPC/522409/2013, 15 January 2020. - Ingrosso MR, et al. (2022). Systematic review and meta-analysis: efficacy of peppermint oil in irritable bowel syndrome. *Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics*. PMID 35942669. - Aziz M, et al. (2020). The anti-spasmodic effect of peppermint oil during colonoscopy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. *Minerva gastroenterologica e dietologica*. PMID 31994371. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Menthae piperitae aetheroleum (Peppermint oil)*. EMA/HMPC/522410/2013, 15 January 2020. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *European Union herbal monograph on Menthae piperitae folium (peppermint leaf)*. EMA/HMPC/572705/2014, 15 January 2020. - European Medicines Agency, Committee on Herbal Medicinal Products. *Assessment report on Menthae piperitae folium*. EMA/HMPC/522409/2013, 15 January 2020. - Ingrosso MR, et al. (2022). Systematic review and meta-analysis: efficacy of peppermint oil in irritable bowel syndrome. *Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics*. PMID 35942669. - Aziz M, et al. (2020). The anti-spasmodic effect of peppermint oil during colonoscopy: a systematic review and meta-analysis. *Minerva gastroenterologica e dietologica*. PMID 31994371. --- *Peppermint.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-16. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/peppermint Historical description, not medical advice.