0% «=60©CULPEPER’s ENGLISH PHYSICIAN, 
caufeth fleep. Infufed in wine, and drunk, it caufeth fleep, and healeth pains ; the 
apples fmelt to, or the juice taken in a fmall quantity, alfo caufe fleep. The feed 
and fruit do cleanfe the womb ; the leaves heal knots in the feth, and the roots 
heal Saint Anthony’s fire, &c. and, boiled with ivy, mollify the fame. The oil 
of mandrakes is very cold; yet it may be anointed upon the temples and nofes of thofe 
that have a phrenzy; if the patient fleep too long, dip afponge in vinegar, and hold 
it tothe nofe. Alfo, it heals vehement pains of the head, and the tooth-ach, when 
applied to the cheeks and jaws, and caufeth fleep. 
Ho? MUSHROOM. 
Description. Mushrooms are plants more p:rfe&t than many people imagine. 
They have a regular root, a ftalk confifting of feveral arrangements of fibres, the 
interftices of which are filled up with a parenchymatous fubftance, leading from the 
root to the head or umbel ; the under-fide of this umbel is full of iamelle, or chives, 
every one of which is a regular pod, or feed-veffel. If thefe lamellae are examined in 
their feveral ftates, the feeds in them may be eafily difcovered, and are always found 
to be of a fize and degree of maturity p:oportioned to the ftate of the plant at the 
time. They have each of them alfo a filiquaceous aperture lengthwife, the feeds 
lying in rows ready to fall through it. The plant iseafily and regularly propagated 
through thefe, and not only may be railed from feed, but, like many other plants, 
may be propagated by roots ; feveral filaments at the root producing tubercles, in 
the manner of the potatoe, from each of which there will arife new roots arid a new 
- plant. The periods of vegetation in this plant are alfo fufficigntly regular ; and the 
common opinion, of its fpringing up in a night and perifhing ‘if aday, has no foun- 
dation in reality ; for, in the common way of raifing them on hot-beds, it is eafy to 
find, that they often ftand a fortnight or longer, from their firft appearance, before 
they are fit for the table. 
~ “Mr, Bradley mentions an hundred kinds of mufhrooms which he has feen in Eng- 
ni i befides thofe very numerous fmall ones which conftitute the mouldinefs of li- 
rs, Fruits, 8zc. -Mathiolus mentions mufhrooms which weighed thirty pounds 
Ww er »as yellow as gold: Fer. Imperatus tells us, he faw fome which 
weighed above of hundred pounds apiece ; and the Journal des Scavans furnithes 
us with an account of fome, growing on‘the frontiers of Hungary, which made 
full cart-load. ~ 
‘ 
The poifon of mufhrooins has been much talked of by feveral perfons ; burthere , 
feems to be no certain account of any body’s having ever been injured by eating the 
: | common 
Pee. a 
