The Complete Herbal: To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic.Culpeper, Nicholas
History
The Complete Herbal: To which is now added, upwards of one hundred additional herbs, with a display of their medicinal and occult qualities physically applied to the cure of all disorders incident to mankind: to which are now first annexed, the English physician enlarged, and key to Physic.
Culpeper, Nicholas
Botany, Medical; Botany, Medical -- England; Herbs -- Therapeutic use; Materia medica, Vegetable; Medicinal plants; Medicinal plants -- England
_Government and virtues._] They are all three herbs of Jupiter and
under Leo, all great cordials, and great strengtheners of nature.
The leaves and roots are to very good purpose used in putrid and
pestilential fevers, to defend the heart, and help to resist and expel
the poison, or the venom of other creatures: the seed is of the like
effect; and the seed and leaves are good to increase milk in women’s
breasts; the leaves, flowers, and seed, all or any of them, are good to
expel pensiveness and melancholy; it helps to clarify the blood, and
mitigate heat in fevers. The juice made into a syrup prevails much to
all the purposes aforesaid, and is put, with other cooling, opening and
cleansing herbs to open obstructions, and help the yellow jaundice, and
mixed with Fumitory, to cool, cleanse, and temper the blood thereby;
it helps the itch, ringworms and tetters, or other spreading scabs or
sores. The flowers candied or made into a conserve, are helpful in the
former cases, but are chiefly used as a cordial, and are good for those
that are weak in long sickness, and to comfort the heart and spirits
of those that are in a consumption, or troubled with often swoonings,
or passions of the heart. The distilled water is no less effectual to
all the purposes aforesaid, and helps the redness and inflammations of
the eyes, being washed therewith; the herb dried is never used, but
the green; yet the ashes thereof boiled in mead, or honied water, is
available against the inflammations and ulcers in the mouth or throat,
to gargle it therewith; the roots of Bugloss are effectual, being made
into a licking electuary for the cough, and to condensate thick phlegm,
and the rheumatic distillations upon the lungs.
BLUE-BOTTLE.
IT is called Syanus, I suppose from the colour of it; Hurt-sickle,
because it turns the edge of the sickles that reap the corn; Blue-blow,
Corn-flower, and Blue-bottle.
_Descript._] I shall only describe that which is commonest, and in
my opinion most useful; its leaves spread upon the ground, being
of a whitish green colour, somewhat on the edges like those of
Corn-Scabious, amongst which rises up a stalk divided into divers
branches, beset with long leaves of a greenish colour, either but very
little indented, or not at all; the flowers are of a blueish colour,
from whence it took its name, consisting of an innumerable company of
flowers set in a scaly head, not much unlike those of Knap-weed; the
seed is smooth, bright, and shining, wrapped up in a woolly mantle; the
root perishes every year.
_Place._] They grow in cornfields, amongst all sorts of corn (pease,
beans, and tares excepted.) If you please to take them up from thence,
and transplant them in your garden, especially towards the full of the
moon, they will grow more double than they are, and many times change
colour.
_Time._] They flower from the beginning of May, to the end of the
harvest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account