AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 139 



tween them. The Periwinkle is a great; and Northamptonshire; as also near water- 

 binder, stays bleeding both at mouth and $ courses in other places, 

 nose, if some of the leaves be chewed, j Time.~] It flowers in June and July, and 

 The French used it to stay women's courses. | the seed is ripe in August. 

 Dioscorides, Galen, and jEgineta, com- j Government and virtues.] There is not 

 mend it against the lasks and fluxes of the* a straw to choose between this and St. 

 belly to be drank in wine. j John's Wort, only St. Peter must have it, 



\ lest he should want pot herbs ; It is of the 



ST. PETER'S WORT same property of St. John's Wort, but some- 



| what weaker, and therefore more seldom 



IF Superstition had not been the father j used. Two drams of the seed taken at a 

 of Tradition, as well . as Ignorance the j time in honied water, purges choleric 

 Mother of Devotion, this herb, (as well as \ humours, (as saith Dioscorides, Pliny, and 

 St. John's Wort) hath found some other j Galen,) and thereby helps those that are 

 name to be known by; but we may say of $ troubled with the sciatica. The leaves are 

 our forefathers, as St. Paul of the Athenians, \ used as St. John's Wort, to help those 

 I perceive in many things you are too si/per- { places of the body that have been burnt 

 stitious. Yet seeing it is come to pass, j with fire, 

 that custom having got in possession,! 

 pleads prescription for the name, I shall! 



let it pass, and come to the description of; Descript] COMMON Pimpernel hath 

 the herb, which take as follows. i divers weak square stalks lying on the 



Descript] It rises up with square up- j ground, beset all with two small and almost 

 right stalks for the most part, some greater round leaves at every joint, one against 

 and higher than St. John's Wort (and good another, very like Chickweed, but hath no 

 reason too, St. Peter being the greater \ foot-stalks ; for the leaves, as it were, corn - 

 apostle, (ask the Pope else;) for though -| pase the stalk. The flowers stand singly 

 God would have the saints equal, the Pope \ each by themselves at them and the stalk, 

 is of another opinion,) but brown in the? consistingof five small round-pointed leaves, 

 same manner, having two leaves at every > of a pale red colour, tending to an orange, 

 joint, somewhat like, but larger, than St. j with so many threads in the middle, in whose 

 John's Wort, and a little rounder pointed, j places succeed smooth round heads, where- 

 with few or no holes to be seen thereon, and j in is contained small seed. The root is 

 having sometimes some smaller leaves rising j small and fibrous, perishing every year, 

 from the bosom of the greater, and socne^l Place] It grows almost every where 

 times a little hairy also. At the tops of two { as well in the meadows and corn-fields, 



as by the way-sides, and in gardens, arising 

 of itself. 



Time] It flowers from May until. April, 

 and the seed ripens in the mean time, and 

 falls. 



stalks stand many star-like flowers, with 

 yellow threads in the middle, very like 

 those of St. John's Wort, insomuch that 

 this is hardly discerned from it, but only by 

 the largeness and height, the seed being 



alike also in both. The root abides long, \ Government and virtues] It is a gallant 

 sending forth new shoots every year. j solar herb, of a cleansing attractive quality, 



Place] It grows in many groves, and 5 whereby it draws forth thorns or splinters, 

 small low woods, in divers places of this j or other such like things gotten into the 

 land, as in Kent, Huntingdon, Cambridge, \ flesh ; and put up into the nostrils, purges 



o o 



