52 CULPEPER’s ENGLISH PHYSICIAN, 
Time. They flower in July and the beginning of Auguft, and the feed is ripe 
foon after, but the root is ia ifs printe, as carrots and parfnips are, before the herb’ 
runs up to ftalk. 
GovERNMENT AND Virtues. It is an herb under the dominion of Venus, and 
indeed one of her darlings, though fomething hard to come by. It helps old ulcers, 
hot inflammations, burnings by common fire, and St. Anthony’s fire, by antipathy to 
Mars; for thefe ufes, your beft way is to make it into an ointment. Alo if you 
make a vinegar of it, as you make vinegar of rofes, it helps the morphew and le- © 
profy ; if you apply the herb to the privities, it draws forth the dead child ; it helps 
the yellow jaundice, fpleen, and gravel in the kidnies. Diafcorides faith, it helps 
fuch as are bitten by venomous beafts, whether it be taken ‘inwardly or applied to 
the wound ; nay, he faith further, if any one that hath newly eaten it do but {pit in 
the mouth of a ferpent, the ferpent inftantly dies. It ftays the flux of the belly, 
kills worms, helps the fits of the mother; its decoétion made in wine and drank, 
‘ftrengthens the back, and eafeth the pains thereof ; it helps bruifes and falls, and is 
as gallant a remedy to drive out the {mall pox and meafles as any is. An ointment 
made of it, is excellent for green wounds, pricks, or thrutts. 
) A ADDER’: TONGUE, or SERPENT’s TONGUE, 
DescriPrion. THIS fmall herb hath but one leaf, which grows with the ftalk a 
finger’s length above the ground, being fat, and of a frefh green colour, broad like 
the water plantane, but lefs, without any middle rib init; from the bottom of which 
leaf on the infide, rifeth up ordinarily, one, fometimes two, or three fmall flender — 
ftalks, the upper half whereof is fomewhat bigger, and dented with fmall round ~ 
dents of a yellowith green colour, like the tongue of an adder or ferpent. Only this 
is as ufeful as they are formidable. The root continues all the year, 
a Prace. It groweth in moift meadows, and fuch-like places. a 
3 See And is to be found in April and May, for it guickly perifheth with a 
4 Sov : > AND Virtuzs. It isan herb under the dominion of the Moon in 
ancer, and therefore if the weaknefs of the retentive faculty be caufed by an evil 
influence of Saturn, in any part of the body governed by the Moon, or under the 
~ dominion of Cancer, this herb cures it by fympathy, | It cures thofe difeafes after — 
_ ‘Pscthed in any part of the body under the influence of Satdrn by antipathy, 
vis temperate in refpeét of heat, but dry in the fecond degree. The juice of the 
leaves drank with the diftilled water of horfetail, is a fingular remedy for all manner 
of wounds in the breatt, bowels, or other parts of the body, and is given with good 
| — fuccefs 
