m FLORA HISTORICA, 



" The same taken in like maner, or boiled 

 with honied water or sugar, doth scoure and 

 dense the brest, ripeneth and bringeth foorth 

 tough and clammie flegme." 



LobeHus, a Flemish physician, who settled in 

 England during the reign of James the First, re- 

 marks that the country people of Somersetshire, 

 in his time, were in the habit of employing a 

 decoction of this plant for the cure of fever ; and 

 that its operation was exceedingly violent. 



Parkinson, an apothecary of London, and her- 

 barist to King Charles the First, tells us, in 1640, 

 that notwithstanding the Fox-glove was found 

 to possess the properties noticed by Gerard, yet 

 there were but few physicians that used it, so 

 that it was entirely neglected. This author adds, 

 " And it hath beene of later experience found 

 also to be effectuall against the falling sicknesse, 

 that divers have been cured thereby ;" and he 

 relates some extraordinary instances of this dis- 

 ease being entirely cured by the aid of this plant. 

 To this remark, Waller observes in his New 

 Herbal, " It is singular, that since the plant has 

 been so much in vogue, and employed in such a 

 variety of diseases, no experiment should have 

 been made to ascertain its effects in so formi- 

 dable a disease as epilepsy, which has long been 

 considered the opprobrium medkommr 



