Rosemary 



up into plates with sugar, after the manner of Sugar 

 Roses, and eaten, comfort the heart and make it merry, 

 quicken the spirits, and make them more lively." 

 Culpepper's Herbal, published about half a century 

 later than Gerard's, gives high praise to this plant. 

 "It is an herb of great use with us in these days as 

 any whatsoever, not only for physical as for civil 

 purposes," and then he sets forth a score of diseases 

 or "griefs" for which it is "a sovereign help." Indeed, 

 this might be expected since, as he asserts, " The sun 

 claims privilege in it and it is under the celestial 

 Ram." Not only was the oil prescribed by him but 

 also the flowers to be eaten, fasting every morning, 

 with bread and salt, and the dried leaves to be shredded 

 and smoked as tobacco, or made into ointments, and 

 the branches to be steeped in wine as decoctions. But 

 by degrees 'it waned from favour, and in a Herbal of the 

 early days of the nineteenth century it is referred to 

 "as having obtained a celebrity which it little merits." 

 However, a perfume made by distilling two pounds of 

 Rosemary flowers with four pounds of rectified wine, 

 was then popular and went by the name of "Queen of 

 Hungary's Water," because a certain Queen of Hungary 

 was said to have been cured of some fell disease by 

 drinking it. Though Oil of Rosemary still finds a place 

 in the British Pharmacopoeia among other volatile 

 flavouring oils, it is rarely used, being somewhat of 



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