Fumitory: history, properties and benefits

Published on October 31, 2018 - Medicinal Plants

Storia, proprietà e benefici della Fumaria

Fumaria officinalis L. belongs to the Papaveraceae family.

The name Fumitory, from the Latin fumus, refers to the smell of smoke or soot that the rubbed herb emits. Pliny writes that the juice instilled in the eyes makes the vision clearer but causes tearing like that produced by smoke.

Other common names are: Fumosterno, Dregs, Smoky, Fumastrello, Acetic Herb.

An annual herbaceous plant quite widespread in fields and uncultivated places. It loves soils rich in potassium and limestone.

The stem, greenish in color, can reach 70 cm, often appearing prostrate and branched with a yellowish-white fibrous root. The leaves are alternate, bi-tripinnate, bluish-green.

The inflorescences are racemes and bear small zygomorphic, pink-purple flowers, with 2 narrower pentaloid sepals, with a curious characteristic shape somewhat resembling a duck’s beak.

The fruit is small, globular, and has a single seed.

The aerial parts of this officinal plant are used, collected during the flowering period. The drug, which has a salty and bitter taste, contains: isoquinoline alkaloids, including fumarine and protopine, attributed with anti-inflammatory and antiarrhythmic properties; flavonoid glycosides; organic acids (fumaric acid); and mineral salts (potassium).

Activities: diaphoretic, depurative (dermatosis, eczema), stimulant of digestive secretions, regulator of biliary flow (choleretic), stomachic, laxative, diuretic, initially tonic then hypotensive. Recommended for: arteriosclerosis, intestinal parasitosis, tendency to plethora (erythrocytosis, blood hyperviscosity), biliary tract disorders.

In ancient medicine, it was considered both cooling and warming and was a plant with purifying virtues, both for its effect on the liver and for its ability to “clarify” the blood. Dioscorides speaks of it for its action on bile secretion, as well as a tonic and purifying remedy. Galen says it is a plant capable of eliminating toxic humors, strengthening the liver, and comforting the stomach. Culpeper indicates it as a saturnine plant, suitable for treating skin diseases. The syrup obtained from the juice of the herb, mixed with Damask Rose and Peach flowers or Senna, was “the most singular remedy for the melancholy of the hypochondriac” (M. Grieve in A. Modernal Herbal, 1931).

Traditional Chinese Medicine teaches us that the treatment of eye pathologies should be carried out through liver purification.

Leclerc emphasizes the variability of the plant’s effect in relation to duration and dosage. Short periods of administration, about 20 days, would have a toning action, while prolonged periods would determine hypotonia with a morphine-like effect.

For external use, it can be used to wash the skin in case of skin eruptions and psoriasis, which has led to the use of fumaric acid in some specialties.