AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 



77 



a number of pale yellow flowers, of a strong 

 unpleasant scent, with deeper yellow 

 mouths, and blackish flat seed in round 

 heads. The root is somewhat woody and 

 white, especially the main downright one, 

 with many fibres, abiding many years, 

 shooting forth roots every way round about, 

 and new branches every year. 



Place. ] This grows throughout this land, 

 both by the way sides and in meadows, as 

 also by hedge-sides, and upon the sides of 

 banks, and borders of fields. 



Time.'] It flowers in Summer, and the 

 seed is ripe usually before the end of 

 August. 



Government and virtues.^ Mars owns the 

 herb : In Sussex we call it Gallwort, and 

 lay it in our chicken's water to cure them 

 of the gall ; it relieves them when they are 

 drooping. This is frequently used to spend 

 the abundance of those watery humours by 

 urine which cause the dropsy. The decoc- 

 tion of the herb, both leaves and flowers, 

 in wine, taken and drank, doth somewhat 

 move the belly downwards, opens obstruc- 

 tions of the liver, and helps the yellow 

 jaundice ; expels poison, provokes women's 

 courses, drives forth the dead child, and 

 after-birth. The distilled water of the herb 

 and flowers is effectual for all the same pur- 

 poses ; being drank with a dram of the 

 powder of the seeds of bark or the roots of 

 Wall- wort, and a little Cinnamon, for cer- 

 tain days together, it is held a singular re- 

 medy for the dropsy. The juice of the herb, 

 or the distilled water, dropped into the eyes, 

 is a certain remedy for all heat, inflamma- 

 tion, and redness in them. The juice or 

 water put into foul ulcers, whether they be 

 cancerous or fistulous, with tents rolled 

 therein, or parts washed and injected there- 

 with, cleanses them thoroughly from the 

 bottom, and heals them up safely. The 

 same juice or water also cleanses the skin 

 wonderfully of all sorts of deformity, as 

 leprosy, morphew, scurf, wheals, pimples, 



or spots, applied of itself, or used with some 

 powder of Lupines. 



FLEA-WORT. 



DescriptJ] ORDINARY Flea-wort rises 

 up with a stalk two feet high or more, full 

 of joints and branches on every side up to 

 the top, and at every joint two small, long 

 and narrow whitish green leaves somewhat 

 hairy ; At the top of every branch stand 

 divers small, short scaly, or chaffy heads 

 out of which come forth small whitish 

 yellow threads, like to those of the Plan- 

 tain herbs, which are the bloomings of 

 flowers. The seed enclosed in these heads 

 is small and shining while it is fresh, very 

 like unto fleas both for colour and bigness, 

 but turning black when it grows old. The 

 root is not long, but white, hard and woody, 

 perishing every year, and rising again of 

 its own seed for diversyears, if it be suffered 

 to shed : The whole plant is somewhat 

 whitish and hairy, smelling somewhat like 

 rosin. 



There is another sort hereof, differing not 

 from the former in the manner of growing, 

 but only that the stalk and branches being 

 somewhat greater, do a little more bow 

 down to the ground : The leaves are some- 

 what greater, the heads somewhat less, the 

 seed alike ; and the root and leaves abide 

 all winter, and perish not as the former. 



Placed] The first grows only in gardens, 

 the second plentifully in fields that are 

 near the sea. 



Time.'] They flower in July or there- 

 abouts. 



Government and virtues. ~\ The herb is 

 cold, and dry, and saturnine. I suppose 

 it obtained the name of Flea-wort, because 

 the seeds are so like Fleas. The seeds fried, 

 and taken, stays the flux or lask of the 

 belly, and the corrosions that come by rea- 

 son of hot choleric, or sharp and malignant 

 humours, or by too much purging of any 

 violent medicine, as Scammony, or the 



