Printed in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases” as “—— Scald” under “Head” (the dash stands for the heading above it, or its first word); shown here as “Head — Scald”.
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
A scald head is not a burn. “Scald” here is the old adjective for scabby, from “scall”, a scurfy disease of the scalp: a head crusted and scaly.
What the entries treat
One sentence, White Lilies, which the index also files under Head — Bald: “An ointment made of the root, and hog’s grease, is excellently good for scald heads, unites the sinews when they are cut, and cleanses ulcers”.
Where the word comes from
An alteration of “scall” or “scalled”. Scall is Middle English scalle, taken to be from Old Norse skalli, “bald head, skull”, and names “a scurf or scabby disease, especially of the scalp” (the King James Bible, 1611: “a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head”). Wiktionary’s quotations for scald in this sense are Spenser in 1590 (“scurfe and filthy scald”) and Shakespeare in 1599 (“this same scald, scurvy, cogging companion”).
Today’s words
scalp ringworm (tinea capitis); favus (its severe form, named for its honeycomb crusts); scaly or crusted scalp — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
The false friend is the burn: a reader sees “scald” and thinks of hot water, and the heading has nothing to do with it (burns and scalds are under Burns, CND-0023). The old word is the scaly, scurfy scalp. Which modern disease that was, the one sentence cannot say. Ringworm of the scalp, a fungal infection whose severe form favus is named for its honeycomb crusts, is the modern disease nearest that picture: our reading, since neither Wikipedia article carries the old name.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “scald” (accessed 2026-10-28) (Etymology 2): “Alteration of scall or scalled”; noun (obsolete) “scaliness; a scabby skin disease”, Spenser 1590 “Was ouergrowne with scurfe and filthy scald”; adjective (obsolete) “affected with the scab; scabby”, Shakespeare 1599 “this same scald, scurvy, cogging companion”. Wiktionary, s.v. “scall” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Middle English scalle, taken to be from Old Norse skalli “bald head, skull”; sense “a scurf or scabby disease, especially of the scalp”, King James Bible 1611, Leviticus 13:30, “It is a dry scall, even a leprosy upon the head”. Wikipedia, “Favus” (accessed 2026-10-28): “Favus (Latin for ‘honeycomb’) or tinea favosa is the severe form of tinea capitis”, “caused by the dermatophyte fungus Trichophyton schoenleinii”. Wikipedia, “Tinea capitis” (accessed 2026-10-28): “a cutaneous fungal infection (dermatophytosis) of the scalp”, also called “ringworm of the scalp”; neither article names “scald head”.
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.
1 claim: 1 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
White LiliesLilium candidumCLM-0023361850 index, p. 106Not in 1652
An ointment made of the root, and hog’s grease, is excellently good for scald heads, unites the sinews when they are cut, and cleanses ulcers.