AND ENGLISH PHYSICIAN ENLARGED. 117 



Mercury are found wild in divers places of j or the juice rubbed upon warts, takes them 

 this land, as by a village called Brookland j away. The juice mingled with some vine- 

 in Rumney Marsh in Kent. i gar, helps all running scabs, tetters, ring- 



The Dog Mercury in sundry places of { worms, and the itch. Galen saith, that 

 Kent also, and elsewhere; but the female j being applied in manner of a poultice to 

 more seldom than the male. i any swelling or inflammation, it digests the 



TirneJ] They flower in the Summer \ swelling, and allays the inflammation, and 

 months, and therein give their seed. j is therefore given in clysters to evacuate 



Government and virtues^ Mercury, they > from the belly offensive humours. The Dog 

 ^ay, owns the herb, but I rather think it is j Mercury, although it be less used, yet may 

 Venus's, and I am partly confident of it j serve in the same manner, to the same pur- 

 too, for I never heard that Mercury ever | pose, to purge waterish and melancholy 

 minded women's business so much : I > humours, 

 believe he minds his study more. The de- j 



coction of the leaves of Mercury, or the I MINT. 



juice thereof in broth, or drank with a little | 



sugar put to it, purges choleric and waterish j OP all the kinds of Mint, the Spear 

 humours. Hippocrates commended it j Mint, or Heart Mint, being most usual, 

 wonderfully for women's diseases, and ap- j 1 shall only describe as follows : 

 plied to the secret parts, to ease the pains of j Descript.~\ Spear Mint has divers round 

 the mother; and used the decoction of it, i stalks, and long but narrowish leaves set 

 both to procure women's courses, and to \ thereon, of a dark green colour. The 

 expel the after-birth ; and gave the de- 1 flowers stand in spiked heads at the tops 

 coction thereof with myrrh or pepper, or j of the branches, being of a pale blue 

 used to apply the leaves outwardly against 

 the stranguary and diseases of the reins and 

 bladder. He used it also for sore and 



colour. The smell or scent thereof is some- 

 what near unto Bazil ; it encreases by the 

 root under ground as all the others do. 



watering eyes, and for the deafness and \ Place.] It is an usual inhabitant in gar- 

 pains in the ears, by dropping the juice j dens; and because it seldom gives any 

 thereof into them, and bathing them after- \ good seed, the seed is recompensed by 



! the plentiful increase of the root, which 



wards in white wine. The decoction there- j 

 of made with water and a cock chicken, is 



being once planted in a garden, will hardly 



a most safe medicine against the hot fits of|be rid out again. 



agues. It also cleanses the breast and lungs | TimeJ] It flowers not until the beginning 



of phlegm, but a little offends the stomach. \ of August, for the most part. 



The juice or distilled water snuffed up into ; Government and virtues.~\ It is an herb 



the nostrils, purges the head and eyes ofjof Venus. Dioscorides saith it hath a 



catarrhs and rheums. Some use to drink j healing, binding and drying quality, and 



two or three ounces of the distilled water, j therefore the juice taken in vinegar, stays 



with a little sugar put to it, in the morning j bleeding : It stirs up venery, or bodily lust; 



fasting, to open and purge the body of 



gross, viscous, and melancholy humours. 



two or three branches thereof taken in the 

 juice of four pomegranates, stays the hic- 



Matthiolus saith, that both the seed of the \ cough, vomiting, and allays the choler. It 

 male and female Mercury boiled with j dissolves imposthumes being laid to with 

 Wormwood and drank, cures the yellowy barley-meal. It is good to repress the 

 jaundice in a speedy manner. The leaves milk injvomen's breasts, and for such as 



