THE ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 207 



Place.] The male and female French Mercury are found 

 wild in divers places in this land; as by a village called 

 Brookland, in Rumney-Marsh, in Kent. 



The Dog IVlercury in sundry places of Kent also, and 

 elsewhere; but the female more seldom than the male. 



2'ime.'] They flower in the Summer months, and therein 

 give their seed. 



Government and Virtues.'] Mercury, they say, owns 

 the herb, but I rather think it is Venus's, and I am 

 partly coniideut of it too, for 1 never heard that Mer- 

 cury ever minded women's business so much : I believe 

 he minds his study more. The decottion of the leaves of 

 Mercury, or the juice thereof in broth, or drank with a 

 little sugar put to it, purgeth choleric and waterish. 

 humours. Hippocrates commended it wonderfully for 

 women's diseases, and applied to the secret parts, to ease 

 the pains of the mother ; and used the deco6tion of it, 

 both to procure women's courses, and to expel the after- 

 birth, and gave the decodlion thereof with myrrh or pep- 

 per, or used to apply the leaves outwardly against the 

 stranguary and diseases of the reins and bladder. He 

 used it also for sore and watering eyes, and for the deaf- 

 ness and pains in the ears, by dropping the juice thereof 

 into them, and bathing them afterwards in white wine. 

 The deco(5lion thereof made with water and a cock 

 chicken, is a most safe medicine against the hot tits of 

 agues. It also cleanseth the breast and lungs of phlegm, 

 but a little offendeth the stomach. The juice or distilled 

 water snuffed up into the nostrils, purgeth the head and 

 eyes of catarrhs and rheums. Some use to drink two or 

 three ounces of the distilled water, with a little sugar 

 put to it, in the morning fasting, to open and purge the 

 body of gross, viscous and melancholy humours. It is 

 wonderful (if it be not fabulous) which Dioscorides and 

 Thcophrastus do relate of it, \iz. That if women use 

 these herbs either inwardly or outwardly, or three days 

 together after conception, and their courses be past, 

 they shall bring forth male or female children, according 

 to that kind of herb they use. Matthiolus saith, that 

 the seed both of the male and female Mercury boiled 

 with wormwood and drank, cureth the jellow jaundice 

 jft 9. speedy manneri The leaves or the juice rubbed 



