# Sugar (Saccharum officinarum)

**Saccharum**

**Known today as.** Cane sugar, *Saccharum officinarum*.

Kind: Food & Drink

## What was it used for?

A medicine before a food: for the chest and throat, in syrups, conserves, and the sugared spices.

## What does modern science say?

No medicinal effect beyond its use as a sweetener and preservative.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **sucrose**: 

**Mechanism.** Sugar draws water from bacteria by osmosis, which is the basis of sugar-paste dressings for wounds, used again in Africa and in some British hospitals; and oral rehydration solution, sugar and salt in water, has saved more lives than any drug since 1978.

**Dose.** The harms are of the diet: dental decay, obesity, and diabetes.

**Standing.** Oral rehydration salts are on the WHO list of essential medicines.

## What lore surrounds it?

So much a part of the apothecary’s stock that the French said of a helpless man that he was “like an apothecary without sugar.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** Sugar occupies a single short chapter: “Arabia, too, produces sugar; but that of India is the most esteemed. This substance is a kind of honey, which collects in reeds, white, like gum, and brittle to the teeth. The larger pieces are about the size of a filbert; it is only employed, however, in medicine.”

## Sources

- Mintz, S. W. (1985). *Sweetness and Power*.
- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 12.17, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Topham, J. (2002). “Why do some cavity wounds treated with honey or sugar paste heal without scarring?” *Journal of Wound Care* 11.
- Victora, C. G., et al. (2000). “Reducing deaths from diarrhoea through oral rehydration therapy.” *Bulletin of the World Health Organization* 78.

---

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

Historical description, not medical advice.