Historical label: “Chilblains” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.
Modern reading: chilblains. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with chilblains OR pernio OR frostbite OR "cold injury". The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
The sore, itching swellings that cold brings on hands and feet. A kibe is the same thing, on the heel especially.
What the entries treat
Four claims, all with a sentence, and all say “chilblains or kibes” or “kibes and chilblains”. Beets, “the herb boiled, and laid upon chilblains or kibes, helps them”; Henbane burned, which “quickly heals swellings, chilblains or kibes in the hands or feet, by holding them in the fume thereof”; Kidneywort, “healing kibes and chilblains if they be bathed with the juice, or anointed with ointment made thereof”; the Fig-tree’s wood ashes “made into an ointment with hog’s grease, helps kibes and chilblains”.
Where the word comes from
Chill + blain, “cold sore” literally; the dictionary’s earliest quotation is Beaumont’s Knight of the Burning Pestle (first performed 1607). Kibe is of unknown origin, first in Middle English; Hamlet’s courtier “galls his kibe”.
Today’s words
chilblains; pernio (perniosis); cold injury without freezing — the modern term names the same thing.
How it reads today
Reads as it did; the word is still in use and medicine’s name is pernio. The small blood vessels under the skin are damaged by cold and damp without the tissue freezing, which is what sets a chilblain apart from frostbite. “Kibe” has gone.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “chilblain” (accessed 2026-10-28): “From chill + blain, literally ‘cold sore’”; “An itchy purple red inflammation of the skin, especially of the hands, feet and ears”, from damage to small blood vessels by cold without the tissue freezing, which would be frostbite; synonyms erythema pernio, pernio, kibe; quotations 1607 Beaumont, 1815 Austen, 1847 Brontë. Wiktionary, s.v. “kibe” (accessed 2026-10-28): “Origin unknown, but first attested in Middle English”; “A chilblain (often ulcerated), especially on the heel of the foot”; Shakespeare, Hamlet, “he galls his kibe”. Wikipedia, “Chilblains” (accessed 2026-10-28): “Chilblains, also known as pernio, is a medical condition in which damage occurs to capillary beds in the skin”, on exposure “to cold and humidity”.
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.
4 claims: 4 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
The fume of the dried herb, stalks and seed, burned, quickly heals swellings, chilblains or kibes in the hands or feet, by holding them in the fume thereof.