Dog Mercury

Mercurialis perennis

HRB-0194Entry “DOG MERCURY” 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 · All parts, taken insideA couple who ate a large amount, taking it for brooklime, were in hospital within hours with vomiting and severe kidney-area pain (BMJ 1983). EFSA records vomiting and diarrhoea.EFSA: ingenol esters

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

Culpeper’s claims about it: 10, under 10 headings, 1 where he says it harms or causes

  1. AguesCLM-000037
    The decoction thereof made with water and a cock chicken, is a most safe medicine against the hot fits of agues.
    QUO-000037Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. InflammationsCLM-000934
    Galen saith, that being applied in manner of a poultice to any swelling or inflammation, it digests the swelling, and allays the inflammation, and is therefore given in clysters to evacuate from the belly offensive humours.
    QUO-000710Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. JaundiceCLM-001034
    Matthiolus saith, that both the seed of the male and female Mercury boiled with Wormwood and drank, cures the yellow jaundice in a speedy manner.
    QUO-000773Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  4. Jaundice — YellowCLM-001091
    Matthiolus saith, that both the seed of the male and female Mercury boiled with Wormwood and drank, cures the yellow jaundice in a speedy manner.
    QUO-000773Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  5. LungsCLM-001271
    It also cleanses the breast and lungs of phlegm, but a little offends the stomach.
    QUO-000877Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  6. MelancholyCLM-001320
    Some use to drink two or three ounces of the distilled water, with a little sugar put to it, in the morning fasting, to open and purge the body of gross, viscous, and melancholy humours.
    QUO-000898Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  7. Stomach (Culpeper says it harms)CLM-001620
    It also cleanses the breast and lungs of phlegm, but a little offends the stomach.
    QUO-000877Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  8. SwellingsCLM-001818
    Galen saith, that being applied in manner of a poultice to any swelling or inflammation, it digests the swelling, and allays the inflammation, and is therefore given in clysters to evacuate from the belly offensive humours.
    QUO-000710Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  9. WartsCLM-002056
    The leaves or the juice rubbed upon warts, takes them away.
    QUO-001294Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  10. Women’s DiseasesCLM-002083
    Hippocrates commended it wonderfully for women’s diseases, and applied to the secret parts, to ease the pains of the mother;
    QUO-001301Papers 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.