Misselto

Viscum album

HRB-0196Entry “MISSELTO” 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 · Tea and strong preparationsViscotoxins. Serious poisonings and deaths are reported from strong preparations such as mistletoe tea; EFSA records severe diarrhoea and a cardiorespiratory collapse. Swallowed berries usually do little harm. The EMA declined a monograph.Mistletoe extract is used in European cancer care, usually injected.EFSA: viscotoxin, viscumin

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

Culpeper’s claims about it: 6, under 6 headings

  1. ApoplexyCLM-000121
    Some have so highly esteemed it for the virtues thereof, that they have called it _Lignum Sanctiæ Crucis_, Wood of the Holy Cross, believing it helps the falling sickness, apoplexy and palsy very speedily, not only to be inwardly taken, but to be hung at their neck.
    QUO-000101Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. Falling SicknessCLM-000734
    The Misselto itself of the oak (as the best) made into powder, and given in drink to those that have the falling sickness, does assuredly heal them, as Matthiolus saith:
    QUO-000580Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. ImposthumesCLM-000865
    the birdlime doth molify hard knots, tumours, and imposthumes;
    QUO-000668Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  4. TumoursCLM-001879
    the birdlime doth molify hard knots, tumours, and imposthumes;
    QUO-000668Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  5. Tumours — (hard)CLM-0024431850 index, p. 118
    the birdlime doth molify hard knots, tumours, and imposthumes;
    QUO-000668Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  6. UlcersCLM-001974
    And being mixed with equal parts of rozin and wax, doth molify the hardness of the spleen, and helps old ulcers and sores.
    QUO-001247Papers 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.