kdfl oulpspbr's complbtb hbkbal, 



washed with a lye made of it. It helps the pains of the 

 stomach, being carefully applied fresh or boiled with any 

 of the aforenamed things ; it will ease pains in the ears, if 

 dropped into them ; steeped in vinegar or rose-water, it 

 mitigates the head-ache. The flowers of Melilot and Cam- 

 omile, are used together in clysters to expel wind, and ease 

 pains; also in poultices for the same purpose, and to as- 

 suage swelling tumours in the spleen and other parts, and 

 helps inflammations in any part of the body. The juice 

 dropped into the eyes, is a singular good medicine to take 

 away the film that dims the sight. The head often wash- 

 ed with the distilled water of the herb and flowers is good 

 for those who swoon, also to strengthen the memory, to 

 comfort the head and brain, and to preserve them from 

 pain, and the apoplexy. A plaster made of this herb boil- 

 ed in mutton-suet, wax and rosin, is drawing, and good for 

 green wounds ; the fresh plant makes an excellent poul- 

 tice for hard swellings and inflammatory tumours, at once 

 ripening them, and taking away the pain. 



MERCURY (FBENCR,)^(Mercurialu Gallium.) 



Descrip. — French Mercury, male and female, grows a 

 foot high, full of smooth angular stalks, beset with narrow 

 leaves, about an inch and a half long, broadest in the mid- 

 dle, and sharper at both ends, indented about the edges, 

 of a pale yellow green colour, growing in spikes, which rise 

 from the bosom of the leaves. Those of the female fall off 

 without any seed. The male has a couple of testiculated 

 seeds at the end of the spike. The root is fibrous, and per- 

 ishes after it has flowered and given seed. 



Place, — It grows among rubbish in waste places. 



Time. — It flowers in June. 



Oovernm^nt and Virtues. — This plant is under the domi- 

 nion of the Moon. The leaves and stalks are used, and are 

 aperitive and mollifying; the decoction purges choleric and 

 serous humours : it is also used in clysters. A decoction 

 of the seeds with wormwood, is commended for the yellow 

 jaundice. The juice takes away warts. 



MEZEREON SPURGE.— C2>apAn« Mezereum,) 



Called also Olive Spurge, Flax or Dwarf Bay. 



Descrip. — It has a woody root, tough and spreading, 

 and the stem is shrubby, full of branches, covered with a 

 roughish grey bark, and irrows five or six feet high. The 



