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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    Pettimagget, and Maid-hair; and by some \ Wild Rosemary. | Descript.^ This rises up with divers small brown, and square upright stalks, a yard high or more; sometimes branches forth into divers parts, full of joints, and with divers very fine small leaves at every one of them, little or nothing rough at all; | at the tops of the branches grow many long j tufts or branches of yellow flowers very ; thick set together, from the several joints j which consist of four leaves a piece^ which | smell somewhat strong, but not unpleasant. \ The seed is small and black like poppy i seed, two for the most part joined together: \ The root is reddish, with many small threads | fastened to it, which take strong hold of? the ground, and creep a little: and the \ branches leaning a little down to the ground, | take root at the joints thereof, whereby it | is easily encreased. i There is another sort of Ladies Bed- | straw growing frequently in England, which j bears white flowers as the other doth yel- | low; but the branches of this are so weak, j that unless it be sustained by the hedges, \ or other things near which it grows, it will ! lie down to the ground ; the leaves a little 1 bigger than the former, and the flowers not; so plentiful as these; and the root hereof is | also thready and abiding. ? P/<7ce.] They grow in meadow s and pas- 1 lures both wet and dry, and by the hedges. { Time.^ They flower in May for the most j part, and the seed is ripe in July and 1 August. 1 Government and virtiies.~\ They are both \ herbs of Venus, and therefore strengthening | the parts both internal and external, which | she rules. The decoction of the former of | those bemg drank, is good to fret and break j the stone, provoke urine, stays inward ^ bleeding, and heals inward wounds. The ! herb or flower bruised and put into the | nostrils, stays their bleeding likewise: » The flowers and herbs being made into an ^ oil, by being set in the sun, and changed after it has stood ten or twelve days; or into an ointment being boiled in Amnga, or sallad oil, Avith some Avax melted therein, after it is strained; either the oil made thereof, or the ointment, do help burnings Avith fire, or scaldings Avith water. The same also, or the decoction of the herb and flower, is good to bathe the feet of travellers and lacquies, Avhose long running causes Aveariness and stiffness in the sineAvs and joints. If the decoction be used warm, and the joints afterwards anointed with oint- ment, it helps the dry scab, and the itch in children; and the herb Avith the white floAver is also very good for the sinews, arteries, and joints, to comfort and strengthen them after travel, cold, and pains. BEETS. Of Beets there are tAvo sorts, which are best knoAvn generally, and Avhereof I shall principally treat at this time, viz. the Avhite and red Beets, and their virtues. Descript.~\ The common Avhite Beet has many gi’eat leaves next the ground, some- Avhat large and of a Avhitish green colour. The stalk is great, strong, and ribbed, bear- ing great store of leaves upon it, almost to the very top of it: The floAvers grow in very long tufts, small at the end, and turn- ing doAvn their heads, Avhich are small, pale greenish, yelloAv buds, giving cornered prickly seed. The root is great, long, and hard, and Avhen it has given seed is of no use at all. The common red Beet differs not from the Avhite, but only it is less, and the leaA^es and the roots are someAvhat red ; the leaves are differently red, some only Avith red stalks? or veins; some of a fresh red, and others of a dark red. The root thereof is red, spungy, and not used to be eaten. Government and virtues.^ The government of these tAvo sorts of Beets are far different; the red Beet being under Saturn, and the