CITLPEPER'S complete HBSBAxi. U7 



Place. — It is sown in fields. 



Time. — It flowers in June, the seed only is used, 



Oovemment and Virtues. — Mercury owns this useful 



Elant The seed, which is usually called linseed, is emol- 

 ent, digesting, and ripening ; of great use against inflam- 

 mations, tumours, and imposthumes, and is frequently 

 put into fomentations and cataplasms, for those purposes. 

 Cold-drawn linseed oil is of great service in all diseases 

 of the breast and lungs, as pleurisies and peripneuemoiiia, 

 coughs, asthma and consumption. It likewise helps the 

 colic and stone, both taken at the mouth, and given in 

 clysters. The oil, by expression, is the only officinal 

 preparation. 



FLAX-WEED.— ("Zinana vulgaris.) 



Called also Toad-Flax. 



Descrip. — Our common Flax weed has divers stalks full 

 fraught with long and narrow ash-coloured leaves, and 

 from the middle of them almost upward, stored with a 

 number of pale yellow flowers, of a strong unpleasant 

 scent, with aeeper yellow mouths, and blackish flat seed 

 in round heads. The root is somewhat woody and white, 

 especially the main downright one, with many fibres, abid- 

 ing many years, shooting forth roots every way round 

 about, and new branches every year. 



Place.— T\i\% grows by the way-sides and in meadows, 

 as also by hedge -sides and upon the sides of banks, and 

 borders of tieldsj 



Time. — It flowers in summer, and the seed is ripe usu- 

 ally before the end of August. 



Oovemment and Virtues. — Mars owns the herb. In 

 Saasex we call it gallwort, and lay it in our chickens' water 

 to cure them of the gall ; it relieves them when they are 

 drooping. This is frequently used to spend the abundance 

 of those watery humours by urine, which cause the dropsy. 

 The decoction of the l^erb, both leaves and flowers, in wine 

 taken and drunk, does somewhat move the belly down- 

 wards, opens obstructions of the liver, and helps the yellow 

 jaundice ; expels jjoison, provokes women's courses, drives 

 forth the dead child, and after-birth. The distilled water 

 of the herb and flowers is effectual for aU the same pur- 

 poses ; V>eing drunk with a dram of the powder or the 

 needs of bark or the root8 of wall-wort, and a little cinna- 

 Boo. for certain ditys together, it is held a singular remedy 



