Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of CureFernie, William Thomas
History
Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure
Fernie, William Thomas
Botany, Medical
The Russians and Germans make from Caraways a favourite
liqueur "Kummel," and the Germans add them as a flavouring
condiment to their sawerkraut. In France Caraways enter into the
composition of _l'huile de Venus_, and of other renowned
cordials.
An ounce of the bruised seeds infused for six hours in a pint of
cold water makes a good Caraway julep for infants, from one to
three teaspoonfuls for a dose, It "consumeth winde, and is
delightful to the stomack; the powdered seed put into a poultice
taketh away blacke and blew spots of blows and bruises." "The oil,
or seeds of Caraway do sharpen vision, and promote the secretion
of milk." Therefore dimsighted men and nursing mothers may
courageously indulge in seed cake!
The name Caraway comes from the Gaelic _Caroh_, a ship, because
of the shape which the fruit takes. By cultivation the root
becomes more succulent, and the fruit larger, whilst more oily, and
therefore acquiring an increase of aromatic taste and odour. In
Germany the seeds are given for hysterical affections, being finely
powdered and mixed with ginger and salt to spread with butter on
bread. As a draught for flatulent colic twenty grains of the
powdered seeds may be taken with two teaspoonfuls of sugar in a
wineglassful of hot water. Caraway-seed cake was formerly a
standing institution at the feasts given by farmers to their labourers
at the end of wheat sowing. But narcotic effects have been known
to follow the chewing of Caraway seeds in a large quantity, such
as three ounces at a time.
[84] As regards its stock of honey the Caraway may be termed,
like Uriah Heep, and in a double sense, "truly umbel." The
diminutive florets on its flat disk are so shallow that lepidopterous
and hymenopterous insects, with their long proboses, stand no
chance of getting a meal. They fare as poorly as the stork did in
the fable, whom the fox invited to dinner served on a soup plate.
As Sir John Lubbock has shown, out of fifty-five visitants to the
Caraway plant for nectar, one moth, nine bees, twenty-one flies,
and twenty-four miscellaneous midges constituted the dinner
party.
CHAMOMILE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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