Rhein,a main constituent of rhubarb, is a well-characterized anti-inflammatory agent with recognized utility in a range of inflammatory diseases such as ostarthritis, diabetic nephropathy etc.
Remedies put in place by local government included spraying houses with limewater, or burning rhubarb and root stalks of the Atractylodes flower to disinfect the air.
Three helpings of rhubarb crumble and custard later and the waistband on Harry's jeans was feeling uncomfortably tight (which was saying something as the jeans had once been Dudley's).
In Mrs. Yeobright's garden large-leaved plants of a tender kind flagged by ten o'clock in the morning; rhubarb bent downward at eleven; and even stiff cabbages were limp by noon.
'Er . . . well, it was . . .' said Harry, pulling a dish of rhubarb crumble towards him and helping himself to seconds, 'a complete fiasco, now you mention it.'