8C 



THE COMPLETE HERBAL 



Place.~] They grow in divers corn fields, 

 and in borders about them, and in other 

 fertile grounds about Southfleet in Kent 

 abundantly ; at Buchrite, Hamerton, and 

 Rickmanworth in Huntingdonshire, and in 

 divers other places. 



Tinie.~\ They are in flower about June 

 and July, and the whole plant is dry and 

 withered before August be done. 



Government and virtues.^ It is a Lunar 

 herb. The leaves bruised and applied with 

 barley meal to watering eyes that are hot 

 and inflamed by defluxions from the head, 

 do very much help them, as also the fluxes 

 of blood or humours, as the lask, bloody 

 flux, women's courses, and stays all man- 

 ner of bleeding at the nose, mouth, or any 

 other place, or that comes by any bruise 

 or hurt, or bursting a vein ; it wonderfully 

 helps all those inward parts that need con- 

 solidating or strengthening, and is no less 

 effectual both to heal and close green 

 wounds, than to cleanse and heal all foul 

 or old ulcers, fretting or spreading cankers 

 or the like. This herb is of a fine cooling, 

 drying quality, and an ointment or plaister 

 of it might do a man a courtesy that hath 

 any hot virulent sores : 'Tis admirable for 

 the ulcers of the French pox ; if taken in- 

 wardly, may cure the desease. 



FOX-GLOVE. 



Descript.'] IT has many long and broad 

 leaves lying upon the ground dented upon 

 the edges, a little soft or woolly, and of a 

 hoary green colour, among which rise up 

 sometimes sundry stalks, but one very 

 often, bearing such leaves thereon from the 

 bottom to the middle, from whence to the 

 top it is stored with large and long hollow 

 reddish purple flowers, a little more long 

 and eminent at the lower edge, with some 

 white, spots within them, one above another 

 with small green leaves at every one, but 

 all of them turning their heads one way, 



and hanging downwards, having some 

 threads also in the middle, from whence 

 rise round heads, pointed sharp at the ends, 

 wherein small brown seed lies. The roots 

 are so many small fibres, and some greater 

 strings among them ; the flowers have no 

 scent, but the leaves have a bitter hot 

 taste. 



Placed] It grows on dry sandy ground 

 for the most part, and as well on the higher 

 as the lower places under hedge-sides in 

 almost every county of this land. 



Time.'] It seldom flowers before July, 

 and the seed is ripe in August. 



Government and virtues.'] The plant is 

 under the dominion of Venus, being of a 

 gentle cleansing nature, and withal very 

 friendly to nature. The herb is familiarly 

 and frequently used by the Italians to heal 

 any fresh or green wound, the leaves being 

 but bruised and bound thereon ; and the 

 juice thereof is also used in old sores, to 

 cleanse, dry, and heal them. The decoc- 

 tion hereof made up with some sugar or 

 honey, is available to cleanse and purge 

 the body both upwards and downwards, 

 sometimes of tough phlegm and clammy 

 humours, and to open obstructions of the 

 liver and spleen. It as been found by 

 experience to be available for the king's 

 evil, the herb bruised and applied, or an 

 ointment made with the juice thereof, and 

 so used; and a decoction of two handfuls 

 thereof, with four ounces of Polipody in 

 ale, has been found by late experience to . 

 cure divers of the falling sickness, that have 

 been troubled with it above twenty years. 

 I am confident that an ointment of it is 

 one of the best remedies for scabby head 

 that is. 



FUMITORY. 



Descript.'] OUR common Fumitory is a 

 tender sappy herb, sends forth from one 

 square, a slender weak stalk, and leaning 

 downwards on all sides, many branches 



