Printed in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases” as “—— Head” under “Sore Breasts” (the dash stands for the heading above it, or its first word); shown here as “Sore Head”.
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 head with “running sores” on it: weeping, discharging sores of the scalp, treated from outside. Not a headache.
What the entries treat
Two claims, both with a sentence, both about sores on the head, not pain in it. Garden-Rue in an ointment with oil of roses, ceruse and vinegar “cures St. Anthony’s fire, and all running sores in the head”; Tormentil with a little vinegar “is a special remedy against the running sores of the head or other parts”.
Today’s words
scalp sores; weeping sores of the scalp; scalp infection (for the “running sores”) — the modern term names the same thing.
How it reads today
A false friend. “Sore head” today is heard as a headache; both sentences are about sores on the skin of the head, the kind that run. Medicine names them by their cause, and the two sentences name none. The headache is under Head — Ache, CND-0058, and the scalp has its own index lines, Head — Scabby and Head — Scald, CND-0060 and CND-0061.
References
Wiktionary, s.v. “sore” (accessed 2026-10-28): noun, from Old English sār “ache, wound”; sense “An injured, infected, inflamed or diseased patch of skin”.
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.
2 claims: 2 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
Garden-RueRuta graveolensCLM-0024111850 index, p. 159
An ointment made of the juice thereof with oil of roses, ceruse, and a little vinegar, and anointed, cures St. Anthony’s fire, and all running sores in the head: