Artemisia abrotanum
HRB-0279Entry “SOUTHERN WOOD” 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 Mercury, 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 oil thereof anointed on the back-bone before the fits of agues come, takes them away:
Dioscorides saith, That the seed bruised, heated in warm water, and drank, helps those that are bursten, or troubled with cramps or convulsions of the sinews, the sciatica, or difficulty in making water, and bringing down women’s courses.
Dioscorides saith, That the seed bruised, heated in warm water, and drank, helps those that are bursten, or troubled with cramps or convulsions of the sinews, the sciatica, or difficulty in making water, and bringing down women’s courses.
It takes away inflammations in the eyes, if it be put with some part of a roasted quince, and boiled with a few crumbs of bread, and applied.
The same taken in wine is an antidote, or counter-poison against all deadly poison, and drives away serpents and other venomous creatures;
It is held by all writers, ancient and modern, to be more offensive to the stomach than worm-wood.
The distilled water of the herb is said to help them much that are troubled with the stone, as also for the diseases of the spleen and mother.
The ashes thereof dries up and heals old ulcers, that are without inflammation, although by the sharpness thereof it bites sore, and puts them to sore pains;
The seed as well as the dried herb, is often given to kill the worms in children:
The Germans commend it for a singular wound herb, and therefore call it Stabwort.
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.