156 THE COMPLETE HER HAL 



are singularly good to comfort the heart, j pursued its virtues, you will conclude it 

 and to expel the contagion of the pestilence; {nothing inferior to that which is brought 

 to burn the herb in houses and chambers, out of China, and by that time this hath 

 corrects the air in them. Both the flowers j been as much used as that hath been, the 

 and leaves are very profitable for women j name which the other hath gotten will be 

 that are troubled with the whites, if they be i eclipsed by the fame of this ; take there- 

 daily taken. The dried leaves shred small, j fore a description at large of it as follows : 

 and taken in a pipe, as tobacco is taken, j Descript.~] At the first appearing out of 

 helps those that have any cough, phthisic, | the ground, when the winter is past, it hath 

 or consumption, by warming and drying | a great round brownish head, rising from 

 the thin distillations which cause those dis- I the middle or sides of the root, which opens 

 eases. < The leaves are very much used in j itself into sundry leaves one after another, 

 bathings ; and made into ointments or oil, j very much crumpled or folded together at 

 are singularly good to help cold benumbed j the first, and brownish : but afterwards it 

 joints, sinews, or members. The chymical | spreads itself, and becomes smooth, very 

 oil drawn from the leaves and flowers, is a ( large and almost round, every one standing 

 sovereign help for all the diseases aforesaid, | on a brownish stalk of the thickness of a 

 to touch the temples and nostrils with two | man's thumb, when they are grown to their 

 or three drops for all the diseases of the I fulness, and most of them two feet and 

 head and brain spoken of before; as also t more in length, especially when they grow 

 ro take one drop, two, or three, as the case | in any moist or good ground ; and the 

 tequires, for the inward griefs : Yet must it ' stalk of the leaf, from the bottom thereof to 

 be done with discretion, for it is very quick | the leaf itself, being also two feet, the breadth 

 and piercing, and therefore but a little must . thereof from edge to edge, in the broadest 

 be taken at a time. There is also another j place, being also two feet, of a sad or dark 

 oil made bv insolation in this manner : t green colour, of a fine tart or sourish taste, 

 Take what quantity you will of the flowers, i much more pleasant than the garden or 

 and put them into a strong glass close * wood sorrel. From among these rise up 

 stopped, tie a fine linen cloth over the \ some, but not every year, strong thick 

 mouth, and turn the mouth down into i stalks, not growing so high as the Patience, 

 another strong glass, which being set in the ; or garden Dock, with such round leaves as 

 sun, an oil will distil down into the lower j grow below, but small at every joint up to 

 glass, to be preserved as precious for divers ; the top, and among the flowers, which are 

 uses, both inward and outward, asa sovereign *. white, spreading forth into many branches, 

 balm to heal the disease before-mentioned, > consisting of five or six small leaves a-piece, 

 to clear dim sights, and to take away spots, I hardly to be discerned from the white 

 marks, and scars in the skin. I threads in the middle, and seeming to be all 



5 threads, after which come brownish three 



RHUBARB, OR REPHONTIC. ^ ^ , jke 



Do not start, and say, This grows you | larger, whereby it may be plainly known to 

 know not how far off: and then ask me, j be a Dock. The root grows in time to be 

 How it comes to pass that I bring it among! very great, with clivers and sundry great 

 our English simples? For though the name j spreading branches from it, of a dark 

 may speak it foreign, yet it grows with us in brownish or reddish colour on the outside, 

 England, and that frequent enough in our j having a pale yellow skin under it, which 

 gardens ; and when you have thoroughly \ covers the inner substance or root, which 



