Historical label: “King’s-evil” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.
Modern reading: scrofula. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with scrofula OR "tuberculous lymphadenitis" OR lymphadenitis OR "lymph node". The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
Hard swollen “kernels” (glands) in the neck and throat and behind the ears, which may break and run. The name is the people’s, as the entries say (“commonly called”, “vulgarly called”), not the physicians’.
What the entries treat
21 claims: 21 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone. The entries define it as they go: “the kernels of the throat, commonly called the king’s evil” (Eringo) and “the imposthumes by the throat, commonly called the king’s evil, and of those kernels that rise behind the ears” (Mallows). About half are laid on from outside, “bruised and applied to the place” (Orchis, Stone-Crop, English Tobacco); Gentian is “taken inwardly for the king’s evil”, and Fig-wort has it by astrology, “because the Moon that rules the disease, is exalted there”.
Where the word comes from
Named, on Wiktionary, “from a popular belief that the King could cure the disease by touching the sufferer”. The physicians’ word, scrofula, is Latin scrofulae, a diminutive of scrofa “breeding sow”: on one of the two explanations the entry gives, because swine were thought prone to it; on the other, from a likeness of the swellings to little pigs.
Today’s words
scrofula; tuberculous lymphadenitis of the neck (tuberculosis in the neck lymph nodes); swollen neck glands (cervical lymphadenopathy, for the sentences that say only “kernels”) — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
The disease the royal touch was for is what medicine calls tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis, tuberculosis in the lymph nodes of the neck, and the same swelling from related mycobacteria; from the 16th century the touch was given for it alone, and the English crown gave the ceremony up under George I. Culpeper’s sentences take in any hard kernel of the neck, which today would be sorted by its cause before it got a name, so the modern term fits the old name and not every swelling filed under it.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “king's evil” (accessed 2026-10-28): etymology “From a popular belief that the King could cure the disease by touching the sufferer”; sense “(archaic) scrofula”; quotation 1806 Robert Willan, On vaccine inoculation. Wiktionary, s.v. “scrofula” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Latin scrōfulae, diminutive of scrōfa “breeding sow”, with the two explanations given; sense “(pathology) A form of tuberculosis … tending to cause enlarged and degenerated lymph nodes”, especially in the neck. Wikipedia, “Mycobacterial cervical lymphadenitis” (accessed 2026-10-28): “a lymphadenitis of the cervical (neck) lymph nodes associated with tuberculosis” and “nontuberculous (atypical) mycobacteria”; “also known historically as scrofula and the king's evil”. Wikipedia, “Royal touch” (accessed 2026-10-28): used most for “tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis (better known as scrofula or the king's evil)”, and from the 16th century only for that; George I “permanently abandoned the practice”.
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.
21 claims: 21 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
the herb also bruised, and with some salt and vinegar and hog’s-grease, laid upon a hard tumour or swelling, or that vulgarly called the king’s evil, do help to dissolve or discuss them;
The decoction of either leaves or roots being drank, and the decoction of leaves applied to the place, is excellent good for the king’s evil that is broken and runs;
It has been found by experience to be available for the king’s evil, the herb bruised and applied, or an ointment made with the juice thereof, and so used;
The root thereof helps the ruggedness of the nails, and being boiled in wine helps the swelling of the throat, commonly called the king’s evil, as also the swellings of the kernels of the ears.
It is no less effectual to give ease to the pains of the gout, the sciatica, and helps the kernels or knots in the neck or throat, called the king’s evil:
and boiled in white wine, for the imposthumes by the throat, commonly called the king’s evil, and of those kernels that rise behind the ears, and inflammations or swellings in women’s breasts.
It is certain by good experience, that the decoction of the leaves and roots wonderfully helps piles and hæmorrhoids, also kernels by the ears and throat, called the king’s evil, or any other hard wens or tumours.
The juice or powder of the root put in ointments, plaisters, and such things that are to be applied to wounds or sores, is very effectual, as the juice of the leaves and the root bruised and applied to the throat or jaws, heals the king’s evil, and eases the pain of the sciatica;