Printed in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases” as “—— Eyes” under “Sore Breasts” (the dash stands for the heading above it, or its first word); shown here as “Sore Eyes”.
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
Eyes that are red, inflamed or running. In the old physiology the cause is “rheum”, a thin sharp humour falling from the head into the eyes, which the remedy is to “stay”.
What the entries treat
Four claims: three with a sentence, one from the index alone. Succory’s water “is very effectual for sore eyes that are inflamed with redness”; Buck’s-Horn Plantain boiled in ale and wine “stays the distillation of hot and sharp rheums falling into the eyes from the head, and helps all sorts of sore eyes”; Celandine, made into an oil or ointment when the sign allows (“let Leo arise”), “to anoint your sore eyes with”. Loosestrife is listed in the index with no sentence naming it.
Today’s words
conjunctivitis (red eye); eye inflammation; watery or weeping eyes — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
Reads as it did. “Inflamed with redness” is what medicine calls conjunctivitis or red eye, from infection, allergy or irritation; the sentences do not say which. The “rheums falling into the eyes from the head” are the humoral physiology, in which the head made the thin discharge that ran from eyes and nose. The index has Eyes and Eyes — (inflammations of) as well, CND-0042 and CND-0043; Celandine’s “let Leo arise” is Culpeper’s astrology, kept apart on the page.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “rheum” (accessed 2026-10-28): from Ancient Greek ῥεῦμα “stream, humour”; sense “Thin or watery discharge of mucus or serum, especially from the eyes or nose, formerly thought to cause disease” (from 14th c.).
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: 3 with a sentence, 1 from the index alone
The herb boiled in ale and wine, and given for some mornings and evenings together, stays the distillation of hot and sharp rheums falling into the eyes from the head, and helps all sorts of sore eyes.