156 
THE COMPLETE HERBAL 
made of them, are singularly good to com- 
fort the heart, and to expel the contagion of 
the pestilence; to burn the herb in houses 
and chambers, corrects the air in them. Both 
the flowers and leaves are very profitable 
for women that are troubled with the 
whites, if they be daily taken. The dried 
leaves shred small, and taken in a pipe, as 
tobacco is taken, helps those that have any 
cough, phthisic, or consumption, by warm- 
ing and drying the thin distillations which 
cause those diseases. The leaves are very 
much used in bathings; and made into oint- 
ments or oil, are singularly good to help 
cold benumbed joints, sinews, or members. 
The chymical oil drawn from the leaves and 
flowers, is a sovereign help for all the dis- 
eases aforesaid, to touch the temples and 
nostrils with two or three drops for all the 
diseases of the head and brain spoken of be- 
fore; as also to take one drop, two, or three, 
as the case requires, for the inward griefs: 
Yet must it be done with discretion, for it is 
very quick and piercing, and therefore but 
a little must be taken at a time. There is 
also another oil made by insolation in this 
manner: Take what quantity you will of the 
flowers, and put them into a strong glass 
close stopped, tie a fine linen cloth over the 
mouth, and turn the mouth down into an- 
other strong glass, which being set in the 
sun, an oil will distil down into the lower 
glass, to be preserved as precious for divers 
uses, both inward and outward, as a sov- 
ereign balm to heal the diseases before- 
mentioned, to clear dim sights, and take 
away spots, marks, and scars in the skin. 
RHUBARB, OR REPHONTIC. 
_ Do not start, and say, This grows you 
know not how far off; and then ask me, 
How it comes to pass that I bring it among 
our English simples? For though the name 
_ may speak it foreign, yet it grows with us 
a” England, and that frequent enough in our 
eee and when = have a . 
pursued its virtues, you will conclude it 
nothing inferior to that which is brought 
out of China, and by that time this hath 
been as much used as that hath been, the 
name which the other hath gotten will be 
eclipsed by the fame of this; take there- 
fore a description at large of it as follows: 
Descript.] At the first appearing out of 
the ground, when the Winter is past, it hath 
a great round brownish head, rising from 
the middle or sides of the root, which opens 
itself into sundry leaves one after another, 
very much crumpled or folded together at — 
the first, and brownish: but afterwards it — 
spreads itself, and becomes smooth, very 
large and almost round, every one standing — 
on a brownish stalk of the thickness of a _ 
man’s thumb, when they are grown to their | 
fulness, and most of them two feet and 
more in length, especially when they grow 
in any moist or good ground; and the 
stalk of the leaf, from the bottom thereof to 
the leaf itself, being also two feet, the 
breadth thereof from, edge to edge, in the 
broadest place, being also two feet of a sad 
or dark green colour, of a fine tart or sourish 
taste, much more pleasant than the garden — 
or wood sorrel. From among these. rise uP 
some, but not every year, strong thick — 
stalks, not growing so high as the patience; 
or garden dock, with such round leaves 45 | 
grow below, but smaller at every joint up t0 | 
the top, and among the flowers, which are _ 
white, spreading forth into many branches, 
consisting of five or six small leaves a-pieces 
hardly to be discerned from the white — 
threads in the middle, and seeming to be al! 
threads, after which come brownish threé 
square seeds, like unto other docks, but — 
larger, whereby it may be plainly known ! © 
be a dock. The root grows in time to be — 
very great, with divers and sundry gre — 
spreading branches from it, of a . 
brownish or reddish colour on the outside, | 
with a pale yellow skin under it, which | 
covers the inner substance or root, whic? | 
