Culpeper's complete herbal ... To which are ... annexed his English physician enlarged, and Key to [Galen's Method of] physic ... to which is also added ... receipts selected from the author's Last legacy / Nicholas Culpeper.

  • Nicholas Culpeper
Date:
1814
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Culpeper's complete herbal ... To which are ... annexed his English physician enlarged, and Key to [Galen's Method of] physic ... to which is also added ... receipts selected from the author's Last legacy / Nicholas Culpeper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    them: Country people commonly take the berries of it, and having bruised them, ap- ply them to felons, and thereby soon rid their fingers of such troublesome guests. We have now shewed you the external use of the herb; we shall speak a word or two of the internal, and so conclude. Take notice, it is a Mercurial herb, and there- fore of very subtile parts, as indeed all Mercurial plants are; therefore take a pound of the wood and leaves together, bruise the w'ood (which you may easily do, for it is not so hard as oak) then put it in a pot, and put to it three pints of white w’ine, put on the pot-lid and shut it close; and let it infuse hot over a gentle fire twelve hours, then strain it out, so have you a most excellent drink to open obstructions of the liver and spleen, to help difficulty of breath, bruises and falls, and congealed blood in any part of the body, it helps the yellow-jaundice, the dropsy and black jaundice, and to cleanse women newly brought to bed. You may drink a quarter of a pint of the infusion every morning. It purgeth the body very gently, and not churlishly, as some hold. And when you find good by this, remember me. They that think the use of these medi- cines is too brief, it is only for the cheap- ness of the book; let them read those books of mine, of the last edition, viz. Reverms, Veslingtis, Riolanus, Johnson^ Scnnertiis., and Rhysic for the Poor. ALL-HEAL. > It is called All-heal, Hercules’s All-heal, and Hercules’s Woundwort, because it is supposed that Hercules learned the herb and its virtues frnm Chiron, when he learn- ed physic of him. Some call it Panay, and others Opopane wort. Descript.Its root is long, thick, and ex- ceeding full of juice, of a'hot and biting taste, the leaves are great and large, and winged almost like ash-tree leaves, but that they are something hairy, each leaf con- sisting of five or six pair of such wings set one against the other upon foot-stalks, broad below, but narrow towards the end ; one of the leaves is a little deeper at the bottom than the other, of a fair yellowish, fresh green colour: they are of a bitterish taste, being chewed in the mouth, from among these riseth up a stalk, green in colour, round in form, great and strong in magnitude, five or six feet high in altitude, with many joints, and some leaves thereat; towards the top come forth umbles of small j^ellow flowers, after which are pajsscd away, you may find whitish, yellow, short, flat seeds, bitter also in taste. Place.~\ Having given you a description of the herb from bottom to top, give me leave to tell }^ou, that there are otlier herbs called by this name; but because they are strangers in England, I give only the des- cription of this, which is easily to be had in the gardens of divers places. Time.'] Although Gerrard saith, that they flower from the beginning of May to the end of December, experience teacheththem that keep it in their gardens, that it flowers not till the latter end of the Summer, and sheds its seed presently after. Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mars, hot, biting, and choleric; and remedies what evils Mars inflicts the body of man with, by sympathy, as vipers flesh attracts poison, and the loadstone iron. It kills the worms, helps the gout, cramp, and convulsions, provokes urine, and helps all joint-aches. It helps all cold griefs of the head, the vertigo, falling sick- ness, the lethargy, the wind cholick, obstruc- tions of the liver and spleen, stone in the kidneys and bladder. It provokes the terms, expels the dead birth : It is excellent good for the griefs of the sinews, itch, stone, and tooth-ache, the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts, and purgeth choler very gently.