Hound’s Tongue

Cynoglossum officinale

HRB-0160Entry “HOUND’S TONGUE” in the 1850 textIn Culpeper’s 1652 first edition

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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 insidePyrrolizidine alkaloids (heliosupine and others); hay containing it killed ten horses. No human case was found; it is in the same class as comfrey.EFSA: Pyrrolizidine alkaloids

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

Culpeper’s claims about it: 8, under 8 headings

  1. BurnsCLM-0022791850 index, pp. 98, 359
    as also for any place that is scalded or burnt;
    QUO-001411Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. CoughsCLM-000575
    The root is very effectually used in pills, as well as the decoction, or otherwise, to stay all sharp and thin defluxions of rheum from the head into the eyes or nose, or upon the stomach or lungs, as also for coughs and shortness of breath.
    QUO-000483Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. LungsCLM-001262
    The root is very effectually used in pills, as well as the decoction, or otherwise, to stay all sharp and thin defluxions of rheum from the head into the eyes or nose, or upon the stomach or lungs, as also for coughs and shortness of breath.
    QUO-000483Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  4. PilesCLM-001361
    the root baked under the embers, wrapped in paste or wet paper, or in a wet double cloth, and thereof a suppository made, and put up into or applied to the fundament, doth very effectually help the painful piles or hæmorrhoids.
    QUO-000919Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  5. The root is very effectually used in pills, as well as the decoction, or otherwise, to stay all sharp and thin defluxions of rheum from the head into the eyes or nose, or upon the stomach or lungs, as also for coughs and shortness of breath.
    QUO-000483Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  6. StomachCLM-001604
    The root is very effectually used in pills, as well as the decoction, or otherwise, to stay all sharp and thin defluxions of rheum from the head into the eyes or nose, or upon the stomach or lungs, as also for coughs and shortness of breath.
    QUO-000483Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  7. UlcersCLM-001965
    The distilled water of the herbs and roots is very good to all the purposes aforesaid, to be used as well inwardly to drink, as outwardly to wash any sore place, for it heals all manner of wounds and punctures, and those foul ulcers that arise by the French pox.
    QUO-001241Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  8. WoundsCLM-002199
    It also helps to cure the biting of a mad dog, some of the leaves being also applied to the wound:
    QUO-001371Papers 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.