# Rocket (Eruca vesicaria)

**Rucola**

**Known today as.** *Eruca vesicaria*, salad rocket.

Kind: Plant

## What did Canale use it for?

Its seed among the milder vomits (ch. 5).

## What does modern science say?

Rocket seed resembles mustard seed, and a strong dose causes vomiting. Like mustard, the seed holds glucosinolates that give pungent oils; a dram of the seed would irritate the stomach enough to empty it, as Canale intends.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **glucoerucin**: a glucosinolate
- **erucin**: its isothiocyanate
- **erucic acid**: in the seed oil

**Mechanism.** A mustard-oil salad: the isothiocyanates are the pungency and irritate the stomach in seed doses, Canale’s mild vomit; the aphrodisiac reputation from Roman times has no pharmacology. Erucin is studied for the same enzyme-inducing action as broccoli’s sulforaphane.

**Dose.** A food; the seed oil is high in erucic acid, which the European Union limits in food oils.

**Standing.** A salad; the seed oil (taramira) is used in South Asia.

## What lore surrounds it?

The monks were forbidden it in some rules for its reputation; it came back to the English table in the 1990s under its Italian name, *rucola*, after four centuries as a weed.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dioscorides.** Says the seed and the leaf of *euzomon* provoke lust and urine, and that it is eaten raw with lettuce to temper its heat.

**Pliny and the Romans.** Rocket was the aphrodisiac herb of the Roman kitchen, grown around the statues of Priapus in the gardens, and Martial and Ovid joke of it.

## Sources

- Dioscorides, *De materia medica* II.
- Pliny, *Natural History* XIX–XX.
- Bell, L., and Wagstaff, C. (2014). “Glucosinolates, myrosinase hydrolysis products, and flavonols found in rocket.” *Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry* 62.

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*Rocket.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/rocket

Historical description, not medical advice.