Historical label: “Stings and Venomous Bites” in the 1850 edition’s “A List of the Principal Diseases”.
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
Stings of wasps, hornets and bees, and the bites of serpents, scorpions and other creatures held to be venomous; the remedy “draws the poison” out at the place, or is taken against it.
What the entries treat
Five claims, all with a sentence. Sweet Bazil applied “to the place bitten by venomous beasts, or stung by a wasp or hornet, it speedily draws the poison to it”; Bay berries “are very effectual against all poison of venomous creatures, and the sting of wasps and bees”; Eringo, taken inwardly “and applied to the place stung or bitten by any serpent, heal it speedily”; Rocket seed “is used to cure the biting of serpents, the scorpion, and the shrew mouse, and other poisons”; St. John’s Wort in wine with knot-grass juice “is good for those that are bitten or stung by any venomous creature”.
Today’s words
insect stings (wasp, hornet, bee); snakebite; scorpion sting; envenomation — a broad match: the heading covers more than this, or several modern things.
How it reads today
Reads as it did. Medicine treats a sting and a snakebite as different things, by the creature and its venom; the heading treats them as one poison to be drawn out, so it covers several modern things at once and the match is broad. Some shrews are in fact venomous (Wikipedia), the venom passing into the bite through grooves in the teeth; which animal the old “shrew mouse” in Rocket’s sentence was, the sentence does not say. Drawing poison to the surface with an applied herb is the old idea.
References
Wikipedia, “Shrew” (accessed 2026-10-28): “some species of shrews are venomous”; “Shrew venom is not conducted into the wound by fangs, but by grooves in the teeth.”
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.
5 claims: 5 with a sentence, 0 from the index alone
The seed is used to cure the biting of serpents, the scorpion, and the shrew mouse, and other poisons, and expels worms, and other noisome creatures that breed in the belly.
St. John’s WortHypericum perforatumCLM-0024221850 index, p. 99
The decoction of the herb and flowers, especially of the seed, being drank in wine, with the juice of knot-grass, helps all manner of vomiting and spitting of blood, is good for those that are bitten or stung by any venomous creature, and for those that cannot make water.