The Butter-Bur, Or Petasitis

Petasites hybridus

HRB-0054Entry “THE BUTTER-BUR, OR PETASITIS” in the 1850 textIn Culpeper’s 1652 first edition

Open in the Concordance

Old claims, quoted verbatim: not medical advice. A warning sits above the claims and never hides them; no warning does not mean safe, only that no source here has flagged the plant.

⚠ Poisonous · Taken inside, unless certified PA-freePyrrolizidine alkaloids in the plant. PA-free extracts were studied for migraine, but liver injuries were traced to products with leftover PAs, and some labelled PA-free were not.PA-free extracts were trialled for migraine prevention (the US neurology academy recommended them in 2012, then withdrew that in 2015 over safety).EFSA: Senecionine

Historical correspondence. Ruled by Sun, by Culpeper. A traditional astrological assignment, kept apart from the modern evidence; it is not a finding.

What it does, in Culpeper: Counter-poison

Culpeper’s claims about it: 4, under 4 headings

  1. FeversCLM-000751
    The roots thereof are by long experience found to be very available against the plague and pestilential fevers by provoking sweat;
    QUO-000591Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. Fevers — (Pestilential)CLM-0007731850 index
    The roots thereof are by long experience found to be very available against the plague and pestilential fevers by provoking sweat;
    QUO-000591Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. Poison (to expel)CLM-001387
    if the powder thereof be taken in wine, it also resists the force of any other poison.
    QUO-000943Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  4. WormsCLM-0020911850 index
    It provokes urine also, and women’s courses, and kills the flat and broad worms in the belly.
    QUO-001307Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance

Source

Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, a new edition (London: Thomas Kelly, 1850). Project Gutenberg eBook #49513. SRC-CUL-1850

Quotations are verbatim from the 1850 text, line breaks joined. Modern research and the European regulator’s verdict on each claim are on the Concordance page, kept apart from this historical record.