Succisa pratensis
HRB-0100Entry “DEVIL’S-BIT” in the 1850 textIn Culpeper’s 1652 first edition
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.
Historical correspondence. Ruled by Venus, by Culpeper. A traditional astrological assignment, kept apart from the modern evidence; it is not a finding.
What it does, in Culpeper: Counter-poison
The decoction of the herb, with honey of roses put therein, is very effectual to help the inveterate tumours and swellings of the almonds and throat, by often gargling the mouth therewith.
It helps also those that are inwardly bruised by any casuality, or outwardly by falls or blows, dissolving the clotted blood;
It helps also to procure women’s courses, and eases all pains of the mother and to break and discuss wind therein, and in the bowels.
It helps also those that are inwardly bruised by any casuality, or outwardly by falls or blows, dissolving the clotted blood;
The herb or the root (all that the devil hath left of it) being boiled in wine, and drank, is very powerful against the plague, and all pestilential diseases or fevers, poisons also, and the bitings of venemous beasts:
The herb or the root (all that the devil hath left of it) being boiled in wine, and drank, is very powerful against the plague, and all pestilential diseases or fevers, poisons also, and the bitings of venemous beasts:
The juice or distilled water of the herb, is effectual for green wounds, or old sores, and cleanses the body inwardly, and the seed outwardly, from sores, scurf, itch, pimples, freckles, morphew, or other deformities thereof, especially if a little vitriol be dissolved therein.
The decoction of the herb, with honey of roses put therein, is very effectual to help the inveterate tumours and swellings of the almonds and throat, by often gargling the mouth therewith.
The decoction of the herb, with honey of roses put therein, is very effectual to help the inveterate tumours and swellings of the almonds and throat, by often gargling the mouth therewith.
The decoction of the herb, with honey of roses put therein, is very effectual to help the inveterate tumours and swellings of the almonds and throat, by often gargling the mouth therewith.
The powder of the root taken in drink, drives forth the worms in the body.
The juice or distilled water of the herb, is effectual for green wounds, or old sores, and cleanses the body inwardly, and the seed outwardly, from sores, scurf, itch, pimples, freckles, morphew, or other deformities thereof, especially if a little vitriol be dissolved therein.
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.