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

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.

21/500 (page 5)

$old sores, cancers, and inveterate ulcers, and draweth forth thorns and s.plinters of wood, nails, or any other such things gotten in the flesh. It helps to strengthen the niembers that be out of joint: and being bruised and apjilied, or the juice dropped in it, helps foul and iinposthuined ears. The distilled water of the herb is good to all the said purposes, either inward or outward, but a great deal weaker. It is a most admirable remedy for such whose livers are annoyed either by heat or cold. The liv'er is the former of blood, and blood the nourisher of the bod}', and Agri- mony a strengthener of the liver. I cannot stand to give you a reason in every herb why it cures such diseases ; but if you please to pursue my judgment in the herb Wormwood, you shall find them there, and it will be well worth your 'w'hile to consider it in every herb, you shall find them true throughout the book. WATER AGRIMONY. It is called in some countries, Water Hemp, Bastard Hemp, and Bastard Agri- mony, Eupatorimn, and Hepatorium, be- cause it strenthens the liver. Descripf.~\ The root continues a long time, having many long slender strings. The stalk grows up about two feet high, some- times higlier. They are of a dark purple colour. The branches are many, growing at distances the one from the other, the one from the one side of the stalk, the other from the opposite point. The leaves are winged, and much indented at the edges. The flowers grow at the top of the branches, of a brown yellow colour, spotted with black spots, having a substance within the midst of them like that of a Daisy : If you rub them between your fingers, they smell like rosin or cedar when it is burnt. The seeds are long, and easily stick to any woollen thing they touch. Flace.l They delight not in heat, and therefore they are not so frequently found in the southern parts of England as in the northern, where they grow frequently: You may look for them in cold grounds, by ponds and ditches’ sides, and also by running waters; sometimes you shall find them grow in the midst of waters. Tini£.^ They all flower in Jul}’’ or August, and the seed is ripe presently after. Government mid vi}iues.~\ It is a plant of Jupiter, as well as the other Agrimony, only this belongs to the celestial sign Cancer. It healeth and drieth, cutteth and cleanseth thick and tough humours of the breast, and for this I hold it inferior to but few kerbs that grow. It helps the cachexia or evil disj)osition of the body, fhe dropsy and yellow-jaundice. It opens obstructions of the liver, mollifies tlie hardness of the spleen, being applied outwardly. It breaks impos- thumes away inwardly : It is an excellent remedy for the third day ague. It provokes urine and the terms; it kills worms, and cleansetli the body of sharp humours, wliicli are the cause of itch and scabs ; the herb being burnt, the smoke thereof drivas away flies, wasps, See. It strengthens the lungs exceedingly. Country people give it to their cattle when they are ti'oublecl with the cough, or broken-winded. ALEHOOF, OR GIIOUND-IVT. Several counties give it different names, so that there is scarcely an herb growing of that bigness that has got so many: It is called Cats-foot, Ground-ivy, Gill-go-by- ground, and Gill-creep-by-ground, Turn- hoof, Haymaids, and Alehoof. Descript.'] This well known herb lieth, spreadeth, and creepeth upon the ground, shoots forth roots, at the corners of tender jointed stalks, set with two round leaves at every joint somewhat hairy, crumpled, and unevenly dented about the edges with round dents; at the joints likew'ise, with the leaves towards the end of the branches, come forth$