Printed in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases” as “—— (inflammations of)” under “Eyes” (the dash stands for the heading above it, or its first word); shown here as “Eyes — (inflammations of)”.
Modern reading: inflamed eyes. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with conjunctivitis OR "eye inflammation" OR ophthalmia OR keratitis OR uveitis. The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
Red, hot, watering, bloodshot eyes. Treated with cooling things laid on; one sentence (Groundsel) lays the cause to the “defluxion of rheum”.
What the entries treat
Five claims, all with a sentence: the hot, red, “blood-shotten” eye, cooled from outside. Anemone in an ointment on the eyelids “helps inflammations of the eyes”; Groundsel’s water “especially for inflammations or watering of the eyes, by reason of the defluxion of rheum unto them”; Meadow Trefoil “allays the heat and blood shooting of them”; Violets, “cold and moist”, for “inflammations in the eyes, in the matrix or fundament”; Wheat bread soaked in red rose water “applied to the eyes that are hot, red, and inflamed, or blood-shotten, helps them”.
Today’s words
conjunctivitis (pink eye); red eye; blepharitis (the lids); eye inflammation — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
Reads as it did: an inflamed eye is still an inflamed eye, and “bloodshot” is still the word. Medicine names it by the part (conjunctivitis for the membrane, blepharitis for the lids) and by the cause (infection, allergy, dryness); the heading names only the heat and redness, so conjunctivitis is the usual fit, not the only one. The “defluxion of rheum” is the old physiology of the head dripping, not a cause medicine knows.
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
AnemoneAnemoneCLM-0023021850 index, p. 9Not in 1652
Being made into an ointment, and the eyelids anointed with it, it helps inflammations of the eyes, whereby it is palpable, that every stronger draws its weaker like.
GroundselSenecio vulgarisCLM-0023031850 index, p. 87
The distilled water of the herb performs well all the aforesaid cures, but especially for inflammations or watering of the eyes, by reason of the defluxion of rheum unto them.
All the Violets are cold and moist while they are fresh and green, and are used to cool any heat, or distemperature of the body, either inwardly or outwardly, as inflammations in the eyes, in the matrix or fundament, in imposthumes also, and hot swellings, to drink the decoction of the leaves and flowers made with water in wine, or to apply them poultice-wise to the grieved places: