Historical label: “Scurf, (or running tetters)” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”. Shown as “Scurf (or running tetters)”.
Modern reading: eczema and scaly skin. Searched in PubMed as each plant’s Latin name with eczema OR dermatitis OR psoriasis OR seborrheic OR "skin lesion". The counts and papers are on the Concordance page.
A note on the heading
Plain sense
Scaly, flaking skin: on the scalp it is dandruff, on the body a “white scurf” among the “deformities” of the skin. A “running tetter” is a weeping skin eruption. The heading is a look, not one disease.
What the entries treat
16 claims: 15 with a sentence, 1 from the index alone. Scurf of the head, with dandruff: Beets “cleanses the head of dandruff, scurf, and dry scabs”; Mallows for “the scurf, dandriff, or dry scabs in the head, or other parts”; Mint for “the scurf or dandriff of the head used with vinegar”; Scabious “cleanses it from dandriff, scurf, sores, itch, and the like”; Wall Rue’s lye “to cleanse the head from scurf, and from dry and running sores”. And scurf as a blemish of the skin and face, listed with freckles, morphew, spots and leprosy: Cuckow-point’s water “to cleanse the skin from scurf, freckles, spots, or blemishes whatsoever”; Madder for “freckles, morphew, the white scurf, or any such deformity of the skin”; the Fig-tree for “the body of white scurf, scabs, and running sores”; Wheat bran in vinegar for “the scurf, morphew, scabs or leprosy”; the Elm “cures scurf and leprosy very effectually”. The Beech’s hollow-water alone carries the index’s second phrase: “any scurf, or running tetters”. Plantain is an index name with no sentence.
Where the word comes from
Old English scurf, from a Germanic root “to gnaw”; Middle English scurf was both “skin disease causing scabs or scales” and the “flakes of skin that fall off”. Tetter: Old English teter, “any of various pustular skin conditions”. Morphew, which runs beside scurf in five sentences, is from Medieval Latin morphea; in English, “a blemish or mark on the skin”.
Today’s words
dandruff; flaking or scaly skin; eczema and psoriasis (the scaling skin conditions a reader may mean); weeping eczema (for “running tetters”) — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
“Scurf” has narrowed to dandruff, which the dictionary gives as its synonym; the old word also covered any scaling or crusting of the skin. Medicine sorts scaling skin by cause (seborrhoeic dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, fungal infection) and the sentences do not, so no single modern name fits. The “leprosy” of these lists has its own heading, CND-0076.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “scurf” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Middle English scurf “skin disease causing scabs or scales; flakes of skin that fall off due to a skin disease”, Old English scurf, Proto-Germanic *skurf- “to gnaw”; senses “skin disease”, “flakes of skin” (synonym dandruff), “crust-like formations”, Milton 1667. Wiktionary, s.v. “tetter” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Old English teter, tetr, tetra; sense “(now rare) any of various pustular skin conditions”. Wiktionary, s.v. “morphew” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Medieval Latin morphea, “perhaps from Ancient Greek μορφή (form, shape)”; sense “a blemish or mark on the skin, especially a blister caused by scurvy”.
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.
16 claims: 15 with a sentence, 1 from the index alone
and cleanses the head of dandruff, scurf, and dry scabs, and does much good for fretting and running sores, ulcers, and cankers in the head, legs, or other parts, and is much commended against baldness and shedding the hair.
The fresh roots bruised and distilled with a little milk, yields a most sovereign water to cleanse the skin from scurf, freckles, spots, or blemishes whatsoever therein.
The juice or distilled water of the herb, is effectual for green wounds, or old sores, and cleanses the body inwardly, and the seed outwardly, from sores, scurf, itch, pimples, freckles, morphew, or other deformities thereof, especially if a little vitriol be dissolved therein.
The same juice or water also cleanses the skin wonderfully of all sorts of deformity, as leprosy, morphew, scurf, wheals, pimples, or spots, applied of itself, or used with some powder of Lupines.
The leaves and roots beaten and applied to any part that is discoloured with freckles, morphew, the white scurf, or any such deformity of the skin, cleanses thoroughly, and takes them away.
The juice of Mallows boiled in old oil and applied, takes away all roughness of the skin, as also the scurf, dandriff, or dry scabs in the head, or other parts, if they be anointed therewith, or washed with the decoction, and preserves the hair from falling off.
Pliny saith, that eating of the leaves hath been found by experience to cure the leprosy, applying some of them to the face, and to help the scurf or dandriff of the head used with vinegar.
and applied to the skin, takes away the blemish thereof, whether they be scars, leprosy, scabs, or scurf, which although it ulcerate the part, yet that is to be helped afterwards with a salve made of oil and wax.
The water that is found in the hollow places of decaying Beeches will cure both man and beast of any scurf, or running tetters, if they be washed therewith;
The lye made thereof is singularly good to cleanse the head from scurf, and from dry and running sores, stays the falling or shedding of the hair, and causes it to grow thick, fair, and well coloured;
The bran of Wheat meal steeped in sharp vinegar, and then bound in a linen cloth, and rubbed on those places that have the scurf, morphew, scabs or leprosy, will take them away, the body being first well purged and prepared.