Historical label: “Head” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.
Modern literature has not yet been searched for this heading’s claims: it comes only from the 1850 index and has no search words yet.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
The index’s catch-all for the head, which its sentences fill with pain in the head, of a cold cause (Feverfew) and of any cause (Roses); the sub-lines Ache, Bald, Scabby and Scald carry the rest. Our reading of “distilling of the brain”: the old physiology’s phlegm dripping from the brain to the lungs and eyes.
What the entries treat
5 claims: 3 with a sentence, 2 from the index alone. All three sentences are pains in the head: Feverfew “for all pains in the head coming of a cold cause, the herb being bruised and applied to the crown of the head”; Roses’ decoction in wine “for the head-ache, and pains in the eyes, ears, throat, and gums”; Pellitory of Spain “easing pains in the head and teeth, but also hinders the distilling of the brain upon the lungs and eyes, thereby preventing coughs, phthisicks and consumption, the apoplexy and falling sickness”. Cives (p. 50) and the Yellow Water-Flag (p. 78) are listed in the index with no sentence naming it.
Today’s words
headache; head pain; (for Pellitory of Spain’s sentence) catarrh and post-nasal drip — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
A body part, not a condition, and a reader will not search for it. The three sentences are headache, which has its own line (Head — Ache) just below; the “cold cause” is Culpeper’s humoral sorting and has no modern counterpart. The brain-to-lungs “distilling” is the same picture as under Brain (to strengthen).
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: 3 with a sentence, 2 from the index alone
CivesAllium schoenoprasumCLM-0023221850 index, p. 50Not in 1652
Listed in the 1850 index; the herbal entry has no sentence naming this complaint. No quotation is recorded.
Pellitory Of SpainAnacyclus pyrethrumCLM-0023251850 index, p. 134Not in 1652
thereby not only easing pains in the head and teeth, but also hinders the distilling of the brain upon the lungs and eyes, thereby preventing coughs, phthisicks and consumption, the apoplexy and falling sickness.