215 FAMILY HERBAL, 



where they will be sometimes in part covered with. 

 a new bark, and so look natural. All the story 

 that they shriek, when they are pulled up, and 

 they use a dog to draw them out of the ground, 

 because it is fatal to any person to do it, and 

 the like, are idle, false, and groundless ; calculated 

 only to surprise ignorant people, and g^et money 

 by the shew : there is nothing singular in the root 

 of the mandrake ; and as to the terms male and female, 

 the two kinds would be better distinguished, by call- 

 ing the one, the broader leaved mandrake, with round 

 fruit, and the other, the narrower leaved mandrake, 

 with oval fruit. There are plants which are se- 

 parately male and female, as hemp, spinach, the date 

 tree, and the like : but there is nothing of this dis- 

 tinction in the mandrakes. 



The fresh root of mandrake, is a violent me- 

 dicine ; it operates both by vomit and stool, and few 

 constitutions are able to bear it. The bark of the 

 root dried works by vomit alone, but very roughly. 

 The fruit may be eaten, but it has a sleepy quality, 

 though not strong. The leaves are used in fomenta- 

 tions and pultices. to allay pains in swellings, and they 

 do very well. 



Most of the idle stories concerning the man- 

 drake, have taken their origin from its being named 

 in scripture. And from the account there given 

 of it, some have imagined, it would make women 

 fruitful ; but this plant does not seem to be the 

 thing intended by the word, nor lias it any such 

 virtues. What the vegetable is, which is named in 

 the scripture, and translated mandrake, we do not 

 know. 



Sweet Marjoram. Majorana. 



A common garden plant, of no great beauty^ 



