Yellow dock
Curled dock; dock
- Known today as
- Rumex crispus. A tall, coarse weed of waste ground with wavy-edged leaves and a tall spike of rust-brown seeds.
- Kind
- Plant, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- nepodin, emodin and chrysophanol, tannins, and 1 more
- Poisoning
- The anthranoid purgatives
- Earliest authority here
- Pliny (AD 23/24–79)
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: An older authority added from a text read in full. Version 1, first published September 27, 2026.
Yellow dock: what was it used for?
The root used as a mild laxative and “blood purifier” in traditional herbalism; the fresh leaf rubbed on the skin as folk first aid.
Yellow dock: what does modern science say?
Its genuine mild laxative action comes from anthraquinones like those of rhubarb and senna. An informal modern test found treated stings eased within minutes against hours for the untreated hand, but the effect has never been confirmed in a controlled trial, and some researchers doubt the leaf does more than the rubbing.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- nepodin ChEMBLa naphthalene
- emodin and chrysophanolanthraquinones, 2–4 per cent of the root
- tannins
- oxalatesin the leaf
- Mechanism
- The root’s anthraquinones are a mild laxative by the colonic route, and its tannins astringe, which gives the old “purges and then binds”; the leaf rubbed on a nettle sting is cooling and alkaline mucilage, not an antidote. The leaf’s oxalate has poisoned in quantity.
- Toxic dose
- The root at 2–4 g is a gentle laxative; the leaf is a food in moderation.
- Syndrome
- The anthranoid purgatives
- Standing
- No EMA monograph; in American and British herbal tradition for skin and constipation.
- Vasas, A., et al. (2015). “The genus Rumex: review of traditional uses, phytochemistry and pharmacology.” Journal of Ethnopharmacology 175. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.jep.2015.09.001
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Yellow dock: what lore surrounds it?
“Nettle in, dock out,” the rhyme for rubbing a dock leaf on a nettle sting, appears as early as Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde in the fourteenth century, one of the oldest folk remedies still practiced in the English-speaking world.
Yellow dock: what did the older authorities say?
- Pliny
- “It is only the lapathum that is better in a wild state than cultivated: in its cultivated state it is the same plant that is known to us as the ‘rumix,’ being the most vigorous by far of all the plants that are grown; so much so, indeed, that it is said that when it has once taken root, it will last for ever, and can never be extirpated from the soil, more particularly if water happens to be near at hand.” Its juices, used in ptisans, impart “a softer and more exquisite flavour,” and “the wild variety is employed for many medicinal purposes.” Elsewhere he notes that of the garden plants “it is lapathum, however, that has the longest root of them all, it attaining the length of three cubits even.”
- Culpeper
- All docks are under Jupiter, and “the yellow Dock-root is best to be taken when either the blood or liver is affected by choler”; the seed stays fluxes, and the roots boiled in vinegar help the itch and scabs; of bloodwort, “as wholesome a pot herb as any,” he complains that women will not put it in the pot “because it makes the pottage black.”
Sources
- Country Life, “Do dock leaves really cure nettle stings?” Book, seen in reviews
- Pliny the Elder, Natural History 19.60; 19.31, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library. Primary text
- Culpeper, N. (1653). The Complete Herbal, “Dock.” Project Gutenberg #49513. Primary text
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- Each quotation from the older authorities checked word for word against the text, read in full
- Sources
- 4 cited: 1 verified against its record, 2 primary text, 1 book, seen in reviews. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 27, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Yellow dock.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/yellow-dock.
- MLA
“Yellow dock.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/yellow-dock. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Yellow dock. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/yellow-dock
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See Also
Poisoned alike: the anthranoid purgatives
Cassia, flower of · Rhubarb · Compound fumitory · Myrobalans · Diacatholicon · Madder · Hiera picra · Lenitive electuary · the syndrome, with all of them →
Sharing tannins, oxalates
Betonica officinalis · Juglans regia · Bistorta officinalis · Galium odoratum · Atriplex hortensis
Also in Pliny the Elder
Agrimony in Pliny the Elder · Yarrow in Pliny the Elder · Alkanet in Pliny the Elder · Woodlouse in Pliny the Elder · everything Pliny the Elder names →
Also in Nicholas Culpeper
Adder’s-tongue fern in Nicholas Culpeper · Woody nightshade in Nicholas Culpeper · Wood sorrel in Nicholas Culpeper · everything Nicholas Culpeper names →
Nearby in the alphabet
Yellow stainer · Yew (Taxus baccata) · Wormwood, oil of (Artemisia absinthium) · Zedoary (of the ginger family, a bitter, camphor-scented root from India) · Abracadabra (one letter shorter each time, into a narrowing triangle)
Historical description, not medical advice.