218 CULTIVATED VEGETABLES. 



somewhat oily, acid, and nitrous ; therefore 

 it is good in all burning, putrid, pestilential 

 distempers. The herb boiled in milk and 

 water, is an excellent remedy for inflam- 

 mation, pleurisy, and all acute diseases ; 

 nothing better corrects the humours, bile, 

 and putrefaction, than this herb ; therefore 

 it must be good for nausea and want of di- 

 gestion, arising from putrefied bile, or from 

 any alcalescent humour in the stomach. 



A volume has been written on the virtues 

 of this herb in German, and translated into 

 Latin, wherein, says Boerhaave, you will find 

 that the plague has been cured, and the 

 gums that were eaten with the scurvy re- 

 stored and healed, by the use of it. 



Bartholin, in his Memoirs of Copenhagen*, 

 says, that the people of Greenland make use 

 of it with scurvy-grass -f in their barley- 

 broth, for scorbutic complaints ; and that 

 these herbs should be generally used toge- 

 ther. 



The root of sorrel is very oily, and almost 

 without acidity; it is aperient, and, when 

 dried, has the singular quality of giving a 

 fine red colour to boiling water : it is, there- 

 fore, used by the French to colour barley- 



* 1671, obs. 9. t Cochlearia. 



