Effective against scrofula, a historical disease involving swollen lymph glands, usually caused by tuberculosis infection.
From anti- (against) + scrofulous (from Latin scrofula, swollen glands, possibly related to scrofa, a sow, because pigs commonly had this condition). The term dates to medieval medicine when scrofula was common and often attributed to supernatural causes.
Medieval Europeans believed scrofula could be cured by the king's touch—a supernatural claim that persisted for centuries until germ theory revealed it was actually tuberculosis, showing how belief in magic can delay medical progress.
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