226 CULPEPER’s ENGLISH PHYSICIAN, 
LOOSE-STRIFE, with fpiked Heads of Flowers. 
Description. THIS groweth with many woody fquare ftalks, full of joints, 
about three feet high at leaft, at every one wheteof are two long leaves, fhorter, 
narrower, and of a darker gteen colour, than the former, and fomewhat brownith, 
The (talks are branched into many long ftems‘of fpiked flowers, half: a foot long, 
growing in bundles one above another, out of fmal) hufks very like the fpiked:heads 
of lavender, each of which flowers have five round pointed leaves of a purple violet 
colour, or fomewhat inclining to rednefs, in which hufks ftand {mall round heads 
after the flowers are fallen, wherein is contained fmall feed, the root creepeth under 
ground like unto the yellow, butis greater than it, and fo are the heads of the 
leaves when they firft appear out of the ground, and more brown than the other. 
Pract. It groweth ufually by rivers, and ditches fides in wet grounds, as about . 
the ditches at and near Lambeth, and in many other parts of the kingdom. 
Time. It flowereth in the months of June and July. 
GovERNMENT AND Viatuzs. The herb is an herb of the moon, and under the 
‘fign Cancer; it is an excellent prefervative of the fight when well; nor is ; therea bet- 
ter cure for fore eyes than eye- bright taken inwardly and this ufed outwardly ; ; it is 
| cold in quality. This herb i is not a whit inferior to the former, it having not only 
all the virtues which the former hath, but fome peculiar virtues of its own found 
out by experience; namely, the diftilled water is a prefent remedy for hurts and 
blows on the eyes, and for blindnefs, if the chryftalline humour be not perifhed ot 
hurts and this hath been fufficiently proved true by the experience of a perion of 
judgment, who kept it long, to himfelf asa great fecret , it alfo cleareth the eyes of 
duft o or-any other thing which may have got into them, and preferveth the fight; it 
‘is alfo.a good remedy for wounds and thrufts, being made into an ointment in the 
following manner: To every ounce of the water add two drams of May-butter with- | 
-outfalt, and of fugar and bees-wax the fame quantity of each, which mutt boil gently 
all together ; when thus brought | to.a proper confiftence, let tents be dipped in 
‘the oi tme at after i it is cold, and put into the. wounds, and the place ¢ covered. with 
Ac th doubled, on which the ointment, may be thinly fpread ; this’ js an ap- 
edi i ir likewife cleanfeth and healeth all foul ulcers and fores whatlo- 
hi ‘them with the water, and laying on them a green leaf or two ‘in 5 the 
aves ir the winter. . This water when. warmed, and ufed.as La 
