102 THE COMPLETE HERBAL 



your eyes nor your taste shall distinguish 

 them from hermodactyls. 



SAGE. 



with wormwood is good for the bloody-flux. 

 Pliny saith, it procures women's courses, 

 \ and stays them coming down too fast: helps 

 I the stinging and biting of serpents, and kills 

 OUR ordinary garden Sage needs no \ the worms that breed in the ear, and in 

 description. 1 sores. Sage is of excellent use to help the 



Time.~\ It flowers in or about July. \ memory, warming and quickening the 



Government and virtues.] Jupiter claims i senses ; and the conserve made of the flowers 

 this, and bids me tell you, it is good for the \ is used to the same purpose, and also for all 

 liver, and to breed blood. A decoction of j the former recited diseases. The juice of 

 the leaves and branches of Sage made and ; Sage drank with vinegar, hath been of good 

 drank, saith Dioscorides, provokes urine, | use in time of the plague at all times, 

 brings down women's courses, helps to i Gargles likewise are made with Sage, rose- 

 expel the dead child, and causes the hair j mary, honey-suckles, and plantain, boiled 

 to become black. It stays the bleeding of s in wine or water, with some honey or allum 

 wounds, and cleanses foul ulcers. Three I put thereto, to wash sore mouths and 

 spoonfuls of the juice of Sage taken fasting, j throats, cankers, or the secret parts of man 

 with a little honey, doth presently stay the \ or woman, as need requires. And with 

 spitting or casting of blood of them that are | other hot and comfortable herbs, Sage is 

 in a consumption. These pills are much | boiled to bathe the body and the legs in the 

 commended ; Take of spikenard, ginger, 5 Summer time, especially to warm cold 

 of each two drams; of the seed of Sage points, r sinews, troubled with the palsy 

 toasted at the fire, eight drams ; of long j and cramp, and to comfort and strengthen 

 pepper, twelvedrams; all these beingbroughu the parts. It is much commended against 

 into powder, put thereto so much juice of | the stitch, or pains in the side coming of 

 Sage as may make them into a mass of .'wind, if the place be fomented warm with 

 pills, taking a dram of them every morning ! the decoction thereof in wine, and the 

 fasting, and so likewise at night, drinking i herb also after boiling be laid warm there- 

 a little pure water after them. Matthiolus j unto, 

 saith, it is very profitable for all manner j 



of pains in the head coming of cold and j WOOD-SAGE. 



rheumatic humours : as aiso for all pains of; 



the joints, whether inwardly or outwardly, ', Descript.~] WOOD-SAGE rises up with 

 and therefore helps the falling-sickness, the j square hoary stalks, two feet high at the 

 lethargy such as are dull and heavy of j least, with two leaves set at every joint, 

 spirit, the palsy ; and is of much use in all i somewhat like other Sage leaves, but 

 defluctions of rheum from the head, and for \ smaller, softer, whiter, and rounder, and a 

 the diseases of the chest or breast. The j little dented about the edges, and smelling 

 leaves of Sage and nettles bruised together, j somewhat stronger. At the tops of the 

 and laid upon the imposthume that rises 1 stalks and branches stand the flowers, on a 

 behind the ears, doth assuage it much, j slender like spike, turning themselves all 

 The juice of Sage taken in warm water, | one way when they blow, and are of a pale 

 helps a hoarseness and a cough. The i and whitish colour, smaller than Sage, but 

 leaves sodden in wine, and laid upon the hooded and gaping like unto them. The 

 place affected with the palsy, helps much, j seed is blackish and round ; four usually 

 if the decoction be drank : Also Sage taken t seem in a husk together : the root is long 



