Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Jalapa is a homeopathic single remedy made from the root of Ipomoea purga, a climbing vine from Mexico. It is also sold as Jalap root. Homeopaths have used it mainly for babies and small children who scream and fret all night but seem settled during the day, often alongside colic and watery stools.
The remedy is made by serial dilution. A root extract is diluted 100 times and shaken, then that mix is diluted again, over and over. At 30C, the usual strength, none of the original root is left in the pellets.
Traditional standing and proof of effect are two different things, and a long record of use is not evidence that something works. Controlled trials have not shown homeopathic remedies to work better than placebo (a dummy treatment). No trial has tested Jalapa itself.
There is no accepted way a 30C dilution could act on the body, because nothing of the root remains in it.
Homeopathy's own idea is that a substance which causes symptoms in a healthy person can calm the same symptoms in a sick one. It also holds that shaking during dilution leaves some kind of imprint in the water. Physics and chemistry give no support to that claim.
What people notice is most likely the illness running its own course, helped along by comfort, attention and expectation. Those feelings are real to the person having them, but they do not come from the pellets.
Jalapa is sold as a homeopathic single remedy, usually as small sugar pellets, liquid drops in alcohol, or tablets.
Common strengths are 6C, 30C and 200C. The higher the number, the more times the material has been diluted.
Some suppliers still sell crude jalap root powder or resin as a laxative. That is a very different product with real drug effects, and it is not what this page recommends.
Jalap root reached Europe from Mexico in the 1500s and takes its name from the town of Xalapa. Herbalists used it as a drastic purgative, meaning a medicine that forces the bowels to empty fast.
Homeopaths took the plant up in the 1800s and listed it in their materia medica (reference books of remedies). It has always been a small, rarely reached-for remedy, best known for the picture of a child who is good all day and screams all night.
See a doctor if diarrhoea in a baby, an older adult or anyone frail lasts more than a day. Also see a doctor for signs of fluid loss, such as a dry mouth, dry nappies, sunken eyes or unusual floppiness.
Get urgent help for blood in the stool, black stools, a hard swollen belly, severe belly pain, or a fever with drowsiness.
If you or your child swallowed crude jalap root and the diarrhoea or vomiting will not stop, contact a doctor or poisons service the same day.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Jalapa is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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