Turnsole, Or Heliotropium

Heliotropium europaeum

HRB-0301Entry “TURNSOLE, OR HELIOTROPIUM” 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 · Taken insideHeliotrine, a pyrrolizidine alkaloid. From other heliotrope species harvested with wheat, it caused the Afghan outbreak of 1974-76: about 7,800 ill and 1,600 dead.EFSA: Heliotrine, cynoglossine

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: 3, under 3 headings

  1. StoneCLM-001755
    and boiled with cummin, helps the stone in the reins, kidneys, or bladder, provokes urine and women’s courses, and causes an easy and speedy delivery in child-birth.
    QUO-001125Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. WartsCLM-002062
    the seed and juice of the leaves also being rubbed with a little salt upon warts and wens, and other kernels in the face, eye-lids, or any other part of the body, will, by often using, take them away.
    QUO-001298Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. WensCLM-0024471850 index, p. 185
    the seed and juice of the leaves also being rubbed with a little salt upon warts and wens, and other kernels in the face, eye-lids, or any other part of the body, will, by often using, take them away.
    QUO-001298Papers 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.