AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 117 



Mercury are found wild in divers places of i or the juice rubbed upon warts, takes them 

 this land, as by a village called Brookland j away. The juice mingled with some vine- 

 in Rumney Marsh in Kent. j gar, helps all running scabs, tetters, ring- 



The Dog Mercury in sundry places of] worms, and the itch. Galen saith, that 

 Kent also, and elsewhere ; but the female j being applied in manner of a poultice to 

 more seldom than the male. 5 any swelling or inflammation, it digests the 



Time.~\ They flower in the Summer * swelling, and allays the inflammation, and 

 months, and therein give their seed. jis therefore given in clysters to evacuate 



Government and virtues.] Mercury, they j from the belly offensive humours. The Dog 

 say, owns the herb, but I rather think it is i Mercury, although it be less used, yet may 

 Venus's, and I am partly confident of it j serve in the same manner, to the same pur- 

 too, for I never heard that Mercury ever 5 pose, to purge waterish and melancholy 

 minded women's business so much : I humours, 

 believe he minds his study more. The de- j 



coction of the leaves of Mercury, or the* MINT. 



juice thereof in broth, or drank with a little \ 



sugar put to it, purges choleric and waterish i OF all the kinds of Mint, the Spear 

 humours. Hippocrates commended it ! Mint, or Heart Mint, being most usual, 

 wonderfully for women's diseases, and ap- ! I shall only describe as follows : 

 plied to the secret parts, to ease the pains of| Descript] Spear Mint has divers round 

 the mother ; and used the decoction of it, stalks, and long but narrowish leaves set 

 both to procure women's courses, and to { thereon, of a dark green colour. The 

 expel the after-birth ; and gave the de- flowers stand in spiked heads at the tops 

 coction thereof with myrrh or pepper, or | of the branches, being of a pale blue 

 used to apply the leaves outwardly against j colour. The smell or scent thereof is some- 

 the stranguary and diseases of the reins and 1 what near unto Bazil ; it encreases by the 

 bladder. He used it also for sore and j root under ground as all the others do. 

 watering eyes, and for the deafness and \ Place.] It is an usual inhabitant in gar- 

 pains in the ears, by dropping the juice j dens; and because it seldom gives any 

 thereof into them, and bathing them after- 1 good seed, the seed is recompensed by 



i i . mi i i * _ i i / t / i i1I 



wards in white wine. The decoction there- i 

 of made with water and a cock chicken, is ; 



the plentiful increase of the root, which 

 being once planted in a garden, will hardly 



a most safe medicine against the hot fits of \ be rid out again, 

 agues. It also cleanses the breast and lungs Time] It flowers not until the beginning 

 of phlegm, but a little offends the stomach. * of August, for the most part. 

 The juice or distilled water snuffed up into; Government and virtues] It is an herb 

 the nostrils, purges the head and eyes ofjof Venus. Dioscorides saith it hath a 

 catarrhs and rheums. Some use to drink j healing, binding and drying quality, and 

 two or three ounces of the distilled water, j therefore the juice taken in vinegar, stays 

 with a little sugar put to it, in the morning j bleeding : It stirs up venery, or bodily lust; 

 fasting, to open and purge the body of ! two or three branches thereof taken in the 

 gross, viscous, and melancholy humours, t juice of four pomegranates, stays the hic- 

 Matthiolus saith, that both the seed of the \ cough, vomiting, and allays die choler. It 

 male and female Mercury boiled with j dissolves imposthumes being laid to with 

 Wormwood and drank, cures the yellow ; j barley-meal. It is good to repress the 

 jaundice in a speedy manner. The leaves 5 milk in women's breasts, and for such as 



