A modern medicinal tincture (H.) is made from the root-stock with spirit of wine; and ten drops of this should be taken three or four times a day with a tablespoonful of cold water. French nurses treat cracked nipples by applying a hollow section of the fresh root over the sore caruncle; and a decoction of the root made by boiling from two to four drachms in a pint of water, is given for bleedings from the lungs or bladder. The name _Consound_, owned by the Common Comfrey, was given likewise to the daisy and the bugle, in the middle ages. "It joyeth," says Gerard, "in watery ditches, in fat and fruitful meadows." A solve concocted from the fresh herb will certainly tend to promote the healing of bruised and broken parts, suggesting as an appropriate motto for the salve box: "Behold how good and pleasant a thing it is to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment which ran down Aaron's beard." Some foreknowledge [122] of the Comfrey perhaps inspired the Prophet Isaiah to predict that after a time "the heart should rejoice and the bones flourish like a herb." The Poet Laureate tells of "This, the Consound, Whereby the lungs are eased of their grief." About a century ago, the _Prickly Comfrey_--a variety of our Consound--was naturalised in this country from the Caucasus, and has since proved itself amazingly productive to farmers, as, when cultivated, it will grow six crops in the year; and the plant is both preventive and curative of foot and mouth disease in cattle. It bears flowers of a rich blue colour. From our Common Comfrey a sort of glue is got in Angora, which is used for spinning the famous fleeces of that country. Mr. Cockayne relates that the locksman at Teddington informed him how the bone of his little finger being broken, was grinding and grunching so sadly for two months, that sometimes he felt quite wrong in his head. One day he saw a doctor go by, and told him about the distress. The doctor said: "You see that Comfrey growing there? Take a piece of its root, and champ it, and put it about your finger, and wrap it up." The man did so, and in four days his finger was well. CORIANDER.