118 



THE COMPLETE HERBAL 



have. 1 swollen, flagging, or great breasts. { turn to its place, the decoction being gar- 

 Applied with salt, it helps the biting of a : gled and held in the mouth, 

 mad dog ; with mead and honeyed water, j The virtues of the Wild or Horse Mint, 

 it eases the pains of the ears, and takes | such as grow in ditches (whose description 

 away the roughness of the tongue, being \ I purposely omitted, in regard they are 



rubbed thereupon. It suffers not milk to 

 curdle in the stomach, if the leaves thereof 

 be steeped or boiled in it before you drink 

 it. Briefly it is very profitable to the 

 stomach. The often use hereof is a very 

 powerful medicine to stay women's courses 

 and the whites. Applied to the forehead 



well known) are serviceable to dissolve wind 

 in the stomach, to help the cholic, and those 

 that are short-winded, and are an especial 

 remedy for those that have veneral dreams 

 and pollutions in the night, being outwardly 

 applied. The juice dropped into the ears 

 eases the pains of them, and destroys the 



and temples, it eases the pains in the head, $ worms that breed therein. They are good 



1* 1 111"!/* * * 1 I f* 



and is good to wash the heads of young 

 children therewith, against all manner of: 

 breakings-out, sores or scabs, therein. It 

 is also profitable against the poison of ve- 

 nomous creatures. The distilled water of 

 Mint is available to all the purposes afore- 

 said, yet more weakly. But if a spirit 

 thereof be rightly and chymically drawn, 

 it is much more powerful than the herb 

 itself. Simeon Sethi saith, it helps a cold 

 liver, strengthens the belly, causes digestion, 

 stays vomits and hiccough ; it is good 

 against the gnawing of the heart, provokes 

 appetite, takes away obstructions of the 

 liver, and stirs up bodily lust ; but therefore 

 too much must not be taken, because it 

 makes the blood thin and wheyish, and 

 turns it into choler, and therefore choleric 

 persons must abstain from it. It is a safe 



against the venemous biting of serpents. 

 The juice laid on warm, helps the king's 

 evil, or kernels in the throat. The decoction 

 or distilled water helps a stinking breath, 

 proceeding from corruption of the teeth, 

 and snuffed up the nose, purges the head. 

 Pliny saith, that eating of the leaves hath 

 been found by experience to cure the 

 leprosy, applying some of them to the face, 

 and to help the scurf or dandriff of the 

 head used with vinegar. They are extremely 

 bad for wounded people ; and they say a 

 wounded man that eats Mint, his wound 

 will never be cured, and that is a long day 



MISSELTO. 



DescriptJ] THIS rises up from the branch 

 or arm of the tree whereon it grows, with 



medicine for the biting of a mad dog, being! a woody stem, putting itself into sundry 



branches, and they again divided into many 

 other smaller twigs, interlacing themselves 

 one within another, very much covered 

 with a greyish green bark, having two leaves 



bruised with salt and laid thereon. The 

 powder of it being dried and taken after 

 meat, helps digestion, and those that are 

 splenetic. Taken with wine, it helps women 



in their sore travail in child-bearing. It is \ set at every joint, and at the end likewise, 

 good against the gravel and stone in the \ which are somewhat long and narrow, small 

 kidneys, and the stranguary. Being i at the bottom, but broader towards the end. 

 smelled unto, it is comfortable for the head \ At the knots or joints of the boughs and 

 and memory. The decoction hereof gar- branches grow small yellow flowers, which 

 gled in the mouth, cures the gums and j run into small, round, white, transparent 

 mouth that are sore, and mends an ill- 5 berries, three or four together, full of a 

 savoured breath ; as also the Rue and Cori- \ glutinous moisture, with a blackish seed in 

 ander, causes the palate of the mouth to | each of them, which was never yet known 



