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.

53/500 (page 33)

$cleared, cleanses the skin from all manner of spots, marks, and freckles that rise either by the heat of the sun, or the malignity of humours. As for the Broom and Broom- rape, Mars owns them, and is exceeding ])re- judicial to the liver; I suppose by reason of the antipathy between Jupiter and Mars, therefore if the liver be disaffected, minister none of it. Buck’s-iiortn plantain. D€sc}'ipt.~\ This being sown of seed, rises up at first with small, long, narrow, hairy, dark green leaves like grass, without any division or gash in them, but those that follow are gashed in on both sides the leaves into three or four gashes, and pointed at the ends, resembling the knags of a buck’s horn, (whereof it took its name) and being well ground round about the root upon the ground, or order one by another, thereby resembling the form of a star, from among which rise up divers hairy stalks about a hand’s breath high, bearing every one a small, long spikey head, like to those of the common plantain, having such like bloom- ings and seed after them. The root is single, long and small, with divers strings at it. PIace.~\ They grow in sandy grounds, as in Tothill fields by Westminster, and divers ■other places of this land. Time.~\ They flower and seed in May, June, and July, and their green leaves do in a manner abide fresh all the Winter. Government and virtues^ It is under the dominion of Saturn, and is of a gallant, drying, and binding quality. This boiled in wine and drank, and some of the leaves put to the hurt place, is an excellent remedy for the biting of the viper oi' adder, which I take to be one and the same: The same being also drank, helps those that are troubled with the stone in the veins or kid- neys, by cooling the heat of the part af- flicted, and strengthens them; also weak stomachs that cannot retain, but cast up their meat. It stays all bleeding both at mouth or nose; bloody urine or the bloody- fiux, and stops the lask of the belly and bowels. The leaves hereof bruised and laid to their sides that have an ague, sud- denly eases the fit; and the leaves and roots being beaten with some bay-salt and applied to the wrists, works the same effects.. The herb boiled in ale and wine, and given for some mornings and evenings together, stays the distillation of hot and sharp rheums falling into the eyes from the head, and helps all sorts of sore eyes. buck’s horn. It is called Hart’s-horn, Herba-stella, and Herba-steilaria, Sanguinaria, Herb-Eve, Herb-Ivy, W ort-Tresses, and Swine-Cresses. DescriptJ] They have many small and weak straggling branches trailing here and there u})on the ground ; 1 lie leaves are many, small and jagged, not much unlike to those of Buck’s-horn Plantain, but much smaller, and not so hairy. The flowers grow among the leaves in small, rough, whitish clusters: The seeds are smaller and brownish, of a bitter taste. Place.'] They grow in dry, barren, sandy grounds. 2Vwe.] They flower and seed when the rest of the plantains do. Government and virtues.] This is also under the dominion of Saturn; the virtues are held to be the same as Buck’s horn plantain, and therefore by all authors it is joined with it. The leaves bruised and ap- plied to the place, stop bleeding. The lierbs bruised and applied to warts, will make them consume and waste in a short time. BUGLE. Besides the name Bugle, it is called Middle Confound and Middle Comfrey, Brown Bugle, and by some Sicklewort, and$