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.

    35/500 (page 17)
    Government and virtues^ It is a notable | plant of Saturn: if you view diligently its \ eftects by sympathy and antipathy, you \ may easily perceive a reason of them; as \ also why barley bread is so unwholesome | for melancholy people. Barley in all the j parts and compositions thereof (except | malt) is more cooling than wheat, and a lit- \ tie cleansing: And all the preparations 1 thereof, as barle}^-water and other things \ made thereof, give great nourishment to | persons troubled with fevers, agues, and \ heats in the stomach : A poultice made of | barley meal or flour boiled in vinegar and ? honey, and a few dry figs put into them, \ dissolves all imposthumes, and assuages | inflammations, being thereto applied. And \ being boiled with melilot and camomile- I flowers, and some linseed, fenugreek, and } rue in powder, and applied warm, it eases i pains in side and stomach, and windiness | of tlie spleen. The meal of barley and \ flea wort boiled in water, and made a poul- | tice with honey and oil of lilies applied | warm, cures swellings under the ears, | throat, neck, and such like; and a plaister \ made thereof Avith tar, Avith sharp vinegar j into a poultice, and laid on hot, helps the | leprosy; being boiled in red AAune Avith | pomegranate rinds, and myrtles, stays \ the lask or other flux of the belly; boiled \ Avith vinegar and quince, it cases the pains of the gout; barley-flour, Avhite salt, honey, and vinegar mingled together, takes away the itch speedily and certainly. The Avater distilled from the green barley in the end of ^ May, is very good for those that have de- | Auctions of humours fallen into their eyes, | and eases the pain being dropped into 1 them ; or Avhite bread steeped therein, and | bound on the eyes, does the same. 5 s GARDEN BAZIL, DR SAVEET BAZIL. | Deseript.^ The greater or ordinary Bazil i rises uji usually Avith one upright stalk, | iliversly branching forth on all sides, Avith j tAvo leaves at every joint, which are some- Avhat broad and round, yet pointed, of a pale green colour, but fresh; a little snipp- ed about the edges, and of a strong healthy scent. The floAvers are small and Avhite, and standing at the tops of the branches, with tAvo small leaves at the joints, in some places green, in others broA\^n, after Avhich come black seed. The root perishes at the approach of Winter, and therefore must be ncAv soAvn every year. P/ace.] It groAvs in gardens. Tme.^ It must be soAved late, and floAvers in the heart of Summer, being a \ery tender plant. Government and virtues.^ This is the herb Avhich all authors are together by the ears about, and rail at one another (like laAvyers.) Galen and Dioscorides hold it not fit to be taken inAvardly; and Chrysippus rails at it Avith doAvnright Billingsgate rhetoric; Pliny, and the Arabian physicians, defend it. For my OAvn part, I presently found that speech true; l^on 7wsfriiim inter nos tanfas cornponere lifes. And aAvay to Dr. Reason Avent I, A\ho told me it Avas an herb of Mars, and under the Scorpion, and perhaps therefore called Basilicon, and it is no marvel if it carry a kind of virulent quality aa ith it. Being applied to the place bitten by venomous beasts, or stung by a Avasp or hornet, it speedily draAvs the poison to it; Every like dj'aws his like. Mizaldus affinns, that, being laid to rot in horse-dung, it Avill breed venomous beasts. Hilarius, a French phy- sician, affirms upon his OArn knoAvledge, that an acquaintance of his, by common smelling to it, had a scorpion bred in his brain. Something is the matter, this herb and rue will not groAv together, no, nor near one another: and we knoAv rue is as great an enemy to poison as any that groAvs. To conclude: It expels both birth and after-birth; and as it helps the deficiency