Editing Mentha pulegium (section)

==History==

===Ancient and modern use===
[[File:Medievalpreg.jpg|thumb|right|230px|A 13th-century image of a woman preparing a pennyroyal mixture using a mortar and pestle for a pregnant woman]]
Documented use of pennyroyal dates back to ancient [[Ancient Greece|Greek]], [[Ancient Rome|Roman]], and [[Middle Ages|Medieval]] cultures. Its name – although of uncertain etymology – is associated with Latin ''pulex'' (flea), alluding to the manner it was used to drive away fleas when smeared on the body.<ref name="Riddle">{{cite book |last=Riddle |first=John |title=Eve's Herbs--A History of Contraception and Abortion in the West |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |date=April 1999 |isbn=9780674270268}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}}</ref> Pennyroyal was commonly incorporated as a cooking [[herb]] by the [[Greeks]] and [[Ancient Rome|Romans]]. A large number of the recipes in the Roman cookbook of [[Apicius]] called for the use of pennyroyal, often along with such herbs as [[lovage]], [[oregano]] and [[coriander]]. Although it was commonly used for cooking also in the [[Middle Ages]], it gradually fell out of use as a culinary herb and is seldom used as such today.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kains |first=Maurice Grenville |title=Culinary Herbs: Their Cultivation Harvesting Curing and Uses |url=https://archive.org/details/culinaryherbs00kain |publisher=Orange Judd Company |location=New York |date=1912}}</ref>

Records from Greek and Roman physicians and scholars contain information pertaining to pennyroyal's medicinal properties, as well as recipes used to prepare it. [[Pliny the Elder]], in his encyclopedia ''[[Naturalis Historia]]'' (''Natural History''), described the plant as an [[emmenagogue]], and that it also expelled a dead [[fetus]].<ref name="Riddle2"/> [[Galen]] only listed pennyroyal as an emmenagogue, as did [[Oribasius]]. Roman and Greek writers Quintus [[Serenus Sammonicus]] and [[Aspasia the Physician]] however both agreed that pennyroyal, when served in tepid water, was an effective abortive method.<ref name="Riddle2"/> A medical text on [[gynecology]] attributed to [[Cleopatra]] (though it was actually written by a female Greek physician [[Metrodora]]) recommends the use of pennyroyal with wine to induce abortions.<ref name="Riddle2">{{cite book |last=Riddle |first=John |title=Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance |publisher=Harvard University Press |date=January 1994 |isbn=9780674168763}}{{page needed|date=September 2021}}</ref>

In regard to its contraceptive properties, it was referred to in a joking manner in [[Aristophanes]]' play ''[[Peace (play)|Peace]]'' (421 BCE). The god [[Hermes]] provides the male character Trygaios a female companion; when Trygaios asks if there would be a problem if she became pregnant, Hermes responds, "Not if you add a dose of pennyroyal."<ref name="Riddle"/> In a similar manner, in Aristophanes' comedy ''[[Lysistrata]]'', after a pregnant female character on stage is told to withhold her body sexually from her husband, a slender female character, in comparison to the pregnant woman, is described as "a very lovely land Well croppy, and trimmed and spruced with pennyroyal."<ref name="Riddle"/>

Early settlers in [[colonial Virginia]] used dried pennyroyal to eradicate pests. Pennyroyal was such a popular herb that the [[Royal Society]] published an article on its use against rattlesnakes in the first volume of its [[Philosophical Transactions]] in 1665.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Of a Way of Killing Rattle-Snakes |journal=Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London |volume=1 |issue=43 |date=1665 |doi=10.1098/rstl.1665.0022 |doi-access=free}}</ref> 17th-century apothecary and physician [[Nicholas Culpeper]] mentions pennyroyal in his medical text ''[[List of plants in The English Physitian|The English Physitian]]'', published in 1652.<ref name="Culpeper"/> In addition to its abortive properties, Culpeper recommends its use for [[gastrointestinal]] ailments, such as [[constipation]] and [[hemorrhoids]], as well as [[itching]] and blemishes to the skin, and even [[toothaches]].<ref name="Culpeper">{{cite book|last=Culpeper|first=Nicholas|title=Culpeper's English Physician and Complete Herbal|date=1652}}</ref>

Pennyroyal is an essential ingredient in the North african dish, which is still eaten to this day, called {{Interlanguage link|Batata fliou|fr|Batata fliou}}.

Pennyroyal continued to be used up through the 20th and 21st centuries. Its oil is still commercially available today, though little is known about the appropriate dosages for humans. Scientists therefore likely consider it unsafe for use, as it is potentially toxic.<ref>{{cite web|title=Pennyroyal|url=https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/natural/480.html|website=U.S. National Library of Medicine|access-date=27 April 2017}}</ref>