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
_Descript._] The most common Crowfoot has many thin great leaves, cut
into divers parts, in taste biting and sharp, biting and blistering
the tongue: It bears many flowers, and those of a bright, resplendent,
yellow colour. I do not remember, that I ever saw any thing yellower.
Virgins, in ancient time, used to make powder of them to furrow bride
beds; after which flowers come small heads, some spiked and rugged like
a Pine-Apple.
_Place._] They grow very common every where; unless you turn your head
into a hedge you cannot but see them as you walk.
_Time._] They flower in May and June, even till September.
_Government and virtues._] This fiery and hot-spirited herb of Mars
is no way fit to be given inwardly, but an ointment of the leaves or
flowers will draw a blister, and may be so fitly applied to the nape of
the neck to draw back rheum from the eyes. The herb being bruised and
mixed with a little mustard, draws a blister as well, and as perfectly
as Cantharides, and with far less danger to the vessels of urine, which
Cantharides naturally delight to wrong; I knew the herb once applied
to a pestilential rising that was fallen down, and it saved life even
beyond hope; it were good to keep an ointment and plaister of it, if it
were but for that.
CUCKOW-POINT.
IT is called Aron, Janus, Barba-aron, Calve’s-foot, Ramp, Starchwort,
Cuckow-point, and Wake Robin.
_Descript._] This shoots forth three, four or five leaves at the most,
from one root, every one whereof is somewhat large and long, broad at
the bottom next the stalk, and forked, but ending in a point, without
a cut on the edge, of a full green colour, each standing upon a thick
round stalk, of a hand-breadth long, or more, among which, after two
or three months that they begin to wither, rises up a bare, round,
whitish green stalk, spotted and streaked with purple, somewhat higher
than the leaves: At the top whereof stands a long hollow husk close at
the bottom, but open from the middle upwards, ending in a point: in
the middle whereof stands the small long pestle or clapper, smaller at
the bottom than at the top, of a dark purple colour, as the husk is on
the inside, though green without; which, after it hath so abided for
some time, the husk with the clapper decays, and the foot or bottom
thereof grows to be a small long bunch of berries, green at the first,
and of a yellowish red colour when they are ripe, of the bigness of a
hazel-nut kernel, which abides thereon almost until Winter; the root
is round, and somewhat long, for the most part lying along, the leaves
shooting forth at the largest end, which, when it bears its berries,
are somewhat wrinkled and loose, another growing under it, which is
solid and firm, with many small threads hanging thereat. The whole
plant is of a very sharp biting taste, pricking the tongue as nettles
do the hands, and so abides for a great while without alteration. The
root thereof was anciently used instead of starch to starch linen with.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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