# Raisins

**Uva passa**

**Known today as.** Dried grapes.

Kind: Food & Drink

## What did Canale use it for?

In the relaxing broths taken before hellebore (ch. 5).

## What does modern science say?

Demulcent, nutritive and mildly laxative, by the *British Pharmaceutical Codex* of 1911, and used for mucilaginous drinks; rich in fibre and potassium, with a low to moderate glycaemic index.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **glucose and fructose**: about 65 per cent sugars
- **fibre**: about 4 per cent
- **potassium**: 
- **tartaric acid**: as potassium acid tartrate

**Mechanism.** A demulcent, nutritive, mildly laxative fruit (Codex, 1911); in the relaxing broths before hellebore it went in with mallow and marshmallow.

**Dose.** A food.

**Standing.** A food.

## What lore surrounds it?

Culpeper’s dispensatory gives “Raisons of the Sun” for the breast and the liver; and the small black “raisins of Corinth” gave English its word currant, from the Anglo-French *raisins de Corinthe*.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Culpeper.** Says raisins of the sun “help infirmities of the breast and liver, restore Consumptions, gently clense and move to stool,” and counts them temperate in heat.

**The purging decoction.** Raisins of the sun stoned, with senna, polypody, ginger, sebestens, and prunes, were boiled into the College’s *Decoctum Sennae Gereonis*, which Culpeper called “a common Decoction for any purge.”

## Sources

- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911), “Uvae. Raisins.” London: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. As transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage.
- “Raisin.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- “Zante currant.” *Wikipedia* (read 2 October 2026).
- Canale, F. (1622). *Del modo di conoscer et sanare i maleficiati*. Brescia.
- Anderson, J. W., and Waters, A. R. (2013). “Raisin consumption by humans: effects on glycemia and insulinemia and cardiovascular risk factors.” *Journal of Food Science* 78.

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

Historical description, not medical advice.