Boils

CND-0018Skin

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Historical label: “Boils” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.

Modern reading: boils and staph. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with furuncle OR abscess OR "Staphylococcus aureus" OR antibacterial. The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.

A note on the heading

Plain sense
A hot, painful swelling in the skin that gathers matter and breaks. The same word, the same thing.
What the entries treat
9 claims. Boils with “felons”, “plague sore”, “imposthumes”, “pushes” and “other swellings”: drawn and broken with poultices (bean flour and fenugreek with honey; Rye leaven “ripens and breaks”; Wheat flour with egg, honey and turpentine “doth draw, cleanse and heal”; Cuckoo-pint leaves “to draw forth the poison”), or Barberry rind to “cleanse the body of choleric humours” and the diseases “choler causes”.
Where the word comes from
Old English bȳl, bȳle, “boil, swelling”.
Today’s words
boil; furuncle; skin abscess; carbuncle (a cluster) — the modern term names the same thing.
How it reads today
A boil today is a furuncle, in the dictionary’s words “a localized accumulation of pus in the skin, resulting from infection”. The “plague sore” in the same sentences is the plague’s, under Fevers — (Pestilential).
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “boil” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Old English bȳl, bȳle “boil, swelling”; “a localized accumulation of pus in the skin, resulting from infection”.

ThinkDeep333, 2026-10-28 · draft, not yet checked. Offered beside Culpeper’s heading, never in its place; nothing here says whether a plant works.

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.

9 claims: 9 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone

  1. Barberry Berberis vulgarisCLM-0002661850 index
    The inner rind of the Barberry-tree boiled in white wine, and a quarter of a pint drank each morning, is an excellent remedy to cleanse the body of choleric humours, and free it from such diseases as choler causes, such as scabs, itch, tetters, ringworms, yellow jaundice, boils, &c.
    QUO-000231Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  2. Beans Vicia fabaCLM-000267
    Flour of beans and Fenugreek mixed with honey, and applied to felons, boils, bruises, or blue marks by blows, or the imposthumes in the kernels of the ears, helps them all, and with Rose leaves, Frankincense and the white of an egg, being applied to the eyes, helps them that are swollen or do water, or have received any blow upon them, if used with wine.
    QUO-000214Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  3. Briony, Or Wild Vine Bryonia dioicaCLM-000269
    and being applied with a little wine mixed therewith, it breaks boils, and helps whitlows on the joints.—For all these latter, beginning at sores, cancers, &c.
    QUO-000233Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  4. Carduus Benedictus Centaurea benedictaCLM-000270
    It helps the plague, sores, boils, and itch, the bitings of mad dogs and venomous beasts, all which infirmities are under Mars;
    QUO-000234Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  5. Clary, Or More Properly Clear-Eye Salvia sclareaCLM-000271
    The leaves used with vinegar, either by itself, or with a little honey, doth help boils, felons, and the hot inflammation that are gathered by their pains, if applied before it be grown too great.
    QUO-000235Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  6. Cuckow-Point Arum maculatumCLM-0022731850 index, p. 59
    The green leaves bruised, and laid upon any boil or plague sore, doth wonderfully help to draw forth the poison:
    QUO-001408Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  7. Rye Secale cerealeCLM-000272
    the bread and the leaven thereof ripens and breaks imposthumes, boils, and other swellings:
    QUO-000236Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  8. Wheat Triticum aestivumCLM-0022741850 index, p. 192
    Wheat flour, mixed with the yolk of an egg, honey, and turpentine, doth draw, cleanse and heal any boil, plague, sore, or foul ulcer.
    QUO-001409Papers and the EMA’s verdict, in the Concordance
  9. Wood Betony Stachys officinalisCLM-000268
    But some do advise to put a little salt for this purpose, being applied with a little hog’s lard, it helps a plague sore, and other boils and pushes.
    QUO-000232Papers 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

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