wayside Dock (_Rumex obtusifolius_) is the most
ordinary of all the Docks, being large and spreading, and so coarse
that cattle refuse to eat it. The leaves are often applied as a rustic
remedy to burns and scalds, and are used for dressing blisters.
Likewise a popular cure for nettle stings is to rub them with a
Dock leaf, saying at the same time:--

"Out nettle: in Dock;
Dock shall have a new smock."

[159] or:

"Nettle out: Dock in;
Dock remove the nettle sting."

A tea made from the root was formerly given for the cure of boils,
and the plant is frequently called Butterdock, because its leaves
are put into use for wrapping up butter. This Dock will not thrive
in poor worthless soil; but its broad foliage serves to lodge the
destructive turnip fly. The root when dried maybe added to tooth
powder.

It was under the broad leaf of a roadside Dock that Hop o' My
Thumb, famous in nursery lore, sought refuge from a storm, and
was unfortunately swallowed whilst still beneath the leaf by a
passing hungry cow.

The herb Patience, or Monk's Rhubarb (_Rumex alpinus_), a
Griselda among herbs, may be given with admirable effect in
pottage, as a domestic aperient, "loosening the belly, helping the
jaundice, and dispersing the tympany." This grows wild in some
parts, by roadsides, and near cottages, but is not common except as
a cultivated herb ill the kitchen-garden, known as "Patience-dock."
It is a remarkable fact that the toughest flesh-meat, if boiled with
the herb, or with other kindred docks, will become quite tender.
The name Patience, or Passions, was probably from the Italian
_Lapazio_, a corruption of _Lapathum_, which was mistaken for
_la passio_, the passion of Christ.

Our _Garden Rhubarb_ is a true Dock, and belongs to the "many-kneed,"
buckwheat order of plants. Its brilliant colouring is due to
varying states of its natural pigment (_chlorophyll_), in
combination with oxygen. For culinary purposes the stalk, or
petiole of the broad leaf, is used. Its chief nutrient property is
glucose, which is identical with grape-sugar. The agreeable taste
and odour of the [160] plant are not brought out until the leaf
stalks are cooked. It came originally from the Volga, and has been
grown in this country since 1573. The sour taste of the stalks is
due to oxalic acid, or rather to the acid oxalate of potash. This
combines with the lime elaborated in the system of a gouty person
(having an "oxalic ac