134 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
the kernels of the stones do wonderfully 
ease the pains and wringings of the belly, 
through wind or sharp humours, and help 
to make an excellent medicine for the stone 
upon all occasions, in this manner: I take 
fifty kernels of peach-stones, and one hun- 
dred of the kernels of cherry-stones, a hand- 
ful of elder flowers fresh or dried, and 
three pints of museadel; set them in a close 
pot into a bed of horse dung for ten days, 
after which distil in a glass with a gentle 
fire, and keep it for your use: You may 
drink upon occasion three or four ounces 
at a time. The milk or cream of these ker- 
nels being drawn forth with some vervain 
water, and applied to the forehead and 
temples, doth much help to procure rest and 
_ sleep to sick persons wanting it. The oil 
drawn from the kernels, the temples being 
therewith anointed, doth the like. The said 
oil put into clysters, eases the pains of the 
wind cholic: and anointed on the lower part 
of the belly, doth the like, and dropped into 
the ears, eases pains in them; the juice of 
the leaves doth the like. Being also anointed 
on the forehead and temples, it helps the 
megrim, and all other parts in the head. If 
the kernels be bruised and boiled in vinegar, 
until they become thick, and applied to the 
head, it marvellously procures the hair to 
grow again upon bald places, or where it is 
too thin. 
THE PEAR TREE. 
Pear Trees are so well known, that they 
need no description. 
Government and virtues.] The Tree be- 
longs to Venus, and so doth the apple tree. 
For their physical use they are best dis- 
cerned by their taste. All the sweet and 
_ luscious sorts; whether manured or wild, 
do help to move the belly downwards, more 
_ or less. Those that are hard and sour, do, 
on the contrary, bind the belly as much, 
and the leaves do so also: Those that are 
t do in some sort cool, but harsh or wild 
sorts much more, and are very good in re- 
pelling medicines; and if the wild sort be 
boiled with mushrooms, it makes them less 
dangerous. The said Pears boiled with a 
little honey, help much the oppressed 
stomach, as all sorts of them do, some more, 
some less: but the harsher sorts do more 
cool and bind, serving well to be bound to 
green wounds, to cool and stay the blood, 
and heal up the green wound without 
farther trouble, or inflammation, as Galen 
saith he hath found by experience. The 
wild pears do sooner close up the lips of 
green wounds than others. 
Schola Salerni advises to drink much 
wine after pears, or else (say they) they are 
as bad as poison; nay, and they curse the 
tree for it too; but if a poor man find his 
stomach oppressed by eating pears, it is but 
working hard, and it will do as well as 
drinking wine. 
PELLITORY OF SPAIN. 
Common Pellitory of Spain, if it be 
planted in our gardens, will prosper very 
well; yet there is one sort growing ordi- 
narily here wild, which I esteem to be little 
inferior to the other, if at all. I shall not 
deny you the description of them both. 
Descript.]| Common Pellitory is a very 
common plant, and will not be kept in our 
gardens without diligent looking to. The 
root goes down right into the ground bear- 
ing leaves, being long and finely cut upo? 
the stalk, lying on the ground, much larget 
than the leaves of the camomile are. At 
the top it bears one single large flower at 4 
place, having a border of many leaves; 
white on the upper side, and reddish under 
neath, with a yellow thrum in the middle; 
not standing so close as that of camomile. 
The other common Pellitory which grows _ 
here, hath a root of a sharp biting taste, 
scarcely discernible by the taste from that — 
before described, from whence arise divers _ 
brittle stalks, a yard high and more, with 
