Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay ColonyDow, George Francis
History
Every Day Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Dow, George Francis
Massachusetts -- Social life and customs -- To 1775
_Henbane._ Stupifies the senses and therefore not to be taken
inwardly; outwardly applyed to the temple it provokes sleep.
_Hops._ The young sprouts clense the Blood and cleer the skin,
helps scabs and itch. They are usually boyled and taken as they eat
Sparagus or they may be made into a conserve.
_Horehound_ clenseth the breast and lungs, helps old coughs, easeth
hard labour in child-bearing, brings away the after-birth.
_Hysop._ Helps Coughs, shortness of Breath, Wheezing, Kills worms in
the body, helps sore throats and noise in the ears.
_Knotgrasse_ helps spitting of blood, stops all fluxes of blood,
gonorrhaea or running of Reins, and is an excellent remedy for hogs
that will not eat their meat.
_Lavender._ The temples and forehead bathed with the juyce of it, as
also the smell of the herb helps swoonings.
_Lavender cotton_ resists poyson, kills worms.
_Lettice._ Cools the inflamation of the stomack commonly called
heart-burning, provokes sleep, resists drunkenesse and takes away
the ill effects of it, cools the blood, and breeds milk. It is far
wholsommer eaten boyled than raw.
_Liverwort_ is excellent for inflamations of the Liver and yellow
jaundice.
_Lovage_ cleers the sight, takes away redness and Freckles from the
Face.
_Lungwort_ helps infirmities of the lungs, coughs and shortness of
breath.
_Mallows._ They are profitable in the stingings of Bees, Wasps, etc.
Inwardly they resist poyson and provoke to stool....
_Man Drakes._ Fit for no vulgar use, but only to be used in cooling
oyntments.
_Marigolds._ The leaves loosen the belly and the juyce held in the
mouth helps the toothach.
_Marshmallowes_ are meanly hot, of a digestion softening nature,
ease pains, help bloody fluxes, the stone and gravell; being bruised
and well boiled in milk, and the milk drunk is a gallant remedy for
the gripings of the belly, and the bloddy flux.
_Mint._ Provokes hunger, is wholesome for the stomack, stays
vomiting, helps sore heads in children. Hinders conception and
is naught for wounded people, they say by reason of an antipathy
between it and Iron.
_Mugwort_, an herb appropriate to the foeminine sex; it brings down
the terms, brings away birth and afterbirth, easeth pains in the
matrix.
_Mullin._ Stops fluxes and cures hoarsenesse and such as are
broken winded; the leaves worn in the shooes provokes the Terms,
(especially in such Virgins as never had them) but they must be worn
next their feet.
_Nettles._ The juyce stops bleeding; they provoke lust exceedingly;
help that troublesome cough that women call Chin-cough. Boyl them in
white wine.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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