MEDICINAL VIRTUES. 



there sold to give to those that have hot agues, to coole 

 the heate and quench their thirst ; and besides are 

 much desired saith hee, of women and children, to 

 please their pallate ; the honey that the Bees take from 

 the flowers of Heath is called Mel improbum, but we 

 have not found any ill quality therein in our Land; 

 only it will be higher coloured than in those places 

 where no Heath groweth." 



Doedens, in his "Historic of Plants," relates as 

 follows of the value of the Heath in lithotrity : "The 

 learned Mathiolus in his commentaries upon Dios- 

 corides lib. j. doubteth not of this plant but that it is 

 the Erica of Dioscorides whereunto he hath set two 

 other figures of strange heath sent unto him by one 

 Gabriel Fallopius, a learned physician. Moreover, he 

 commendeth much the decoction of our common heath 

 made with faire water to be drunken warm both morn- 

 ing and evening, in the quantity of five ounces, three 

 houres before meat, against the stone in the bladder, 

 so that it be used by the space of thirtie dayes ; but at 

 the last the patient must enter into a bath made of the 

 decoction of Heath and whiles he is in the said bath, 

 he must sit upon some of the Heath that made the 

 foresaid bath, the which bath must be oftentimes re- 

 peated and used. For by the use of the said bath and 

 dyet or decoction, hee hath knowne many to be holpen, 

 so that the stone hath come from them in very small 

 pieces. Also Turner saith that for the diseases of the 

 Milt (spleen) it were better to use the barkes of 

 Heath (in steed of tamarisk) than the barke of Quick- 

 bene." 



81 c 



