# Eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis)

**Euphrasia*, “gladness”*

**Known today as.** *Euphrasia officinalis* and relatives.

Kind: Plant

## What was it used for?

For weak and sore eyes, as a wash or drunk: its flower, marked like a bloodshot eye, was read as a sign of its use.

## What does modern science say?

No proven benefit, and unsterile eyewashes are unsafe.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **aucubin**: an iridoid glycoside
- **euphroside**: 
- **tannins**: 
- **flavonoids**: 

**Mechanism.** Astringent and mildly anti-inflammatory by its tannins and iridoids; an open study of eyebright drops (Stoss, 2000) reported improvement in conjunctivitis without a control, and the EMA found the evidence too thin for a monograph.

**Dose.** Safe as tea; home-made eye washes are a risk of infection, not of the plant.

**Standing.** No EMA monograph, after assessment; the signature of the flower is its only credential for the eye.

## What lore surrounds it?

Folkard: eyebright “was formerly called Euphrosyne, after one of the Graces,” and “according to Coles, it obtained the name of Eyebright from its being employed by the linnet to clear its sight.” Arnoldus “affirms that the plant restored sight to people who had been blind a long while,” Gerarde gives it “beaten into pouder” with fennel-seed, mace and sugar, and Spenser wrote, “Yet Euphrasie may not be left unsung, That gives dim eyes to wander leagues around.”

Grieve says the plant “seems to have been unnoticed by the ancients and no mention of it is made by Dioscorides, Pliny, Galen or even by the Arabian physicians,” but in the fourteenth century “was supposed to cure ‘all evils of the eye.’” Markham's Countrie Farm of 1616 advises, “Drinke everie morning a small draught of Eyebright wine,” and “in Queen Elizabeth's time there was a kind of ale called ‘Eyebright Ale.’” The French call it Casse-lunette, the Germans Augentröst, “consolation of the eyes,” and the belief rests, she thinks, on the doctrine of signatures, since “the purple and yellow spots and stripes which are upon the flowers of the Eyebright doth very much resemble the diseases of the eye, as bloodshot.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Milton.** The archangel Michael clears Adam’s sight before showing him the future: he “purged with euphrasy and rue / The visual nerve, for he had much to see.”

## Sources

- Milton, J. (1667). *Paradise Lost* XI.
- Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Eyebright.” Project Gutenberg #44638.
- Grieve, M. (1931). *A Modern Herbal*, “Eyebright.” botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/e/eyebri20.html
- Stoss, M., et al. (2000). “Prospective cohort trial of *Euphrasia* single-dose eye drops in conjunctivitis.” *Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine* 6.
- Paduch, R., et al. (2014). “Assessment of eyebright (*Euphrasia officinalis* L.) extract activity in relation to human corneal cells.” *Balkan Medical Journal* 31.

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*Eyebright.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/eyebright

Historical description, not medical advice.