Printed in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases” as “—— (to strengthen)” under “Liver” (the dash stands for the heading above it, or its first word); shown here as “Liver — (to strengthen)”.
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 weak liver made strong, by the spring cleansing of the blood or by an astringent, Jupiter-ruled herb: the humoral tonic idea, paired with cleansing the blood.
What the entries treat
4 claims: 4 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone. Cleavers, eaten in water-gruel in the Spring, “to cleanse the blood, and strengthen the liver, thereby to keep the body in health, and fitting it for that change of season that is coming”; Costmary “is astringent to the stomach, and strengthens the liver, and all the other inward parts”; the Red Dock, “commonly called Bloodwort, cleanses the blood, and strengthens the liver”; Hart’s-Tongue, Jupiter’s herb, is “a singular remedy for the liver, both to strengthen it when weak, and ease it when afflicted”.
(none; search aids only) liver tonic; liver support; liver health; spring tonic; cleanse — no modern condition corresponds; the words are search aids only.
How it reads today
No modern condition is “a weak liver”, and no treatment class strengthens one; “liver support” and “liver health” are the marketing heirs of the idea, which is where a reader has met it. Two of the four pair it with cleansing the blood (Cleavers in spring, the Red Dock), the same thread as Blood (to cleanse).
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.
4 claims: 4 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
It is a good remedy in the Spring, eaten (being first chopped small, and boiled well) in water-gruel, to cleanse the blood, and strengthen the liver, thereby to keep the body in health, and fitting it for that change of season that is coming.
Hart’s-TongueAsplenium scolopendriumCLM-0023611850 index, p. 88
Jupiter claims dominion over this herb, therefore it is a singular remedy for the liver, both to strengthen it when weak, and ease it when afflicted, you shall do well to keep it in a syrup all the year;