A heading of ours (added October 2026), not the 1850 index’s. It holds sentences the index would have filed under “Sleep, (to procure)”, read for direction: here Culpeper says the plant causes or harms, or the index heading did not fit.
Modern reading: drowsiness and lethargy. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with lethargy OR somnolence OR drowsiness OR hypersomnia OR wakefulness OR arousal. The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
The lethargy is a disease of deep sleep; the remedy is the seed burnt under the nose, to raise the sick from it.
What the entries treat
One sentence, moved here from “Sleep, (to procure)” when the headings of ours were made (October 2026): Cow Parsnip seed “raises such as are fallen into a deep sleep, or have the lethargy, by burning it under their nose”; the same sentence has it ease “them that are liver-grown” and “women’s passions of the mother”.
Where the word comes from
Greek, through Late Latin and Medieval Latin into Middle English litargie; Wiktionary glosses the Greek noun “drowsiness”, from an adjective “forgetful, lethargic”. Its disease sense is dated from the 14th century, and Shakespeare has “This Apoplexie is (as I take it) a kind of Lethargie” (2 Henry IV, c. 1599).
Today’s words
stupor; reduced consciousness (unresponsiveness); coma (the deep end of it); lethargy (medicine still uses the word for extreme drowsiness) — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
“Lethargy” in everyday use means torpor or, loosely, sluggishness; medicine keeps a stronger sense, “extreme fatigue or drowsiness, deep unresponsiveness, or prolonged sleep patterns”, which is nearer Culpeper’s disease. A heading of ours: a keyword search had filed the sentence under Sleep (to procure), where a reader wanting sleep would have found a remedy for waking people.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “lethargy” (accessed 2026-10-28): Ancient Greek, through Late Latin and Medieval Latin, to Middle English litargie; the Greek noun glossed “drowsiness”, its adjective “forgetful, lethargic”; sense 1 “A state of extreme torpor, sopor or apathy … (loosely) sluggishness, laziness”, sense 2 “(pathology) A condition characterized by extreme fatigue or drowsiness, deep unresponsiveness, or prolonged sleep patterns”, both “from 14th c.”; quotation c. 1599 Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part 2, “This Apoplexie is (as I take it) a kind of Lethargie”.
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.
This heading is ours. Culpeper says this plant rouses people who have fallen into a deep sleep or the lethargy; a keyword search had filed it under “Sleep (to procure)”.
1 claim: 1 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
The seed hereof being drank, cleanses the belly from tough phlegmatic matter therein, eases them that are liver-grown, women’s passions of the mother, as well being drank as the smoke thereof received, and likewise raises such as are fallen into a deep sleep, or have the lethargy, by burning it under their nose.