Historical label: “Cancers” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.
Modern reading: cancer (Culpeper's word covered any eating sore; read with care). Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with cancer OR neoplasm OR antitumor OR anticancer OR cytotoxic. The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
An eating sore: a spreading ulcer that gnaws the flesh and will not heal, on the skin, in the mouth or on the breast. Culpeper names it in the same breath as ulcers and fistulas, and treats it from outside with washes and fomentations.
What the entries treat
Five claims, all with a sentence, and the word always sits in a list with ulcers and fistulas. Alehoof’s juice with honey and verdigrease “stays the spreading or eating of cancers and ulcers”; Asarabacca’s roots “may prove beneficial to such as have cancers, or old putrified ulcers, or fistulas upon their bodies”; Briony’s list runs “beginning at sores, cancers, &c.”; Cinquefoil in lotions and gargles “for sore mouths, ulcers, cancers, fistulas, and other corrupt, foul, or running sores”; the Yellow Water-Flag’s water fomented “upon cancers also, and those spreading ulcers called Noli me tangere”.
Where the word comes from
Latin cancer “crab”, a calque of Greek karkinos “crab; ulcer; cancer”, applied to tumours, Wiktionary says, for a supposed likeness between their swollen veins and a crab’s legs. A doublet of canker and chancre: one word, three roads into English.
Today’s words
malignant ulcer; skin cancer (for some of the “eating” sores); cancer (loosely) — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
A false friend in part. Today cancer is uncontrolled cell growth, told by the microscope; Culpeper’s cancer is what the eye saw, a sore that spreads and eats, which could be a malignant growth or any long-standing ulcer. The “Noli me tangere” of the Water-Flag sentence was an eating ulcer of the face, and the dictionary says many of those are now read as basal or squamous cell carcinomas. The breast cancers of the same sentence (“hot inflammations of women’s breasts, upon cancers also”) are the one place the old and new words may meet; the text does not let us say.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “cancer” (accessed 2026-10-28): “Borrowed from Latin cancer (‘crab’), a calque of Ancient Greek καρκίνος (karkínos, ‘crab; ulcer; cancer’)”, applied to cancerous tumours for a supposed resemblance between their enlarged veins and the legs of a crab; “Doublet of canker and chancre”; sense “(medicine, oncology, pathology) A disease in which the cells of a tissue undergo uncontrolled (often rapid) proliferation”. Wiktionary, s.v. “noli me tangere” (accessed 2026-10-28): sense “(medicine, obsolete) Any of various diseases that cause skin and tissue ulcers, especially on the face”, many now thought to be basal or squamous cell carcinomas; quotation 1601, Holland’s Pliny, “the stinking and illfavored ulcer of the nose, called Noli-me-tangere”.
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.
5 claims: 5 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
The juice of it boiled with a little honey and verdigrease, doth wonderfully cleanse fistulas, ulcers, and stays the spreading or eating of cancers and ulcers;
the roots purge more gently, and may prove beneficial to such as have cancers, or old putrified ulcers, or fistulas upon their bodies, to take a dram of them in powder in a quarter of a pint of white wine in the morning.
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.
The said water fomented on swellings and hot inflammations of women’s breasts, upon cancers also, and those spreading ulcers called _Noli me tangere_, do much good: