114 



A DISCOURSE 



BOOK II. those extravagant plantations of them about London, where the lops 



^"y"^ are permitted to grow without due and skilful laying. There is a sort 

 of Elder which has hardly any pith ; this makes exceedingly stout fences, 

 and the timber very useful for cogs of mills, butchers' skewers, and such 

 tough employments. Old trees do in time become firm, and close up the 

 hoUowness to an almost invisible pith. But if the medicinal properties 

 of the leaves, bark, berries, &c. were thoroughly known, I cannot tell 

 what our countrymen could ail, for which they might not fetch a remedy 

 from every hedge, either for sickness or wound : the inner bark of Elder, 

 applied to any burning, takes out the fire immediately : that, or in season, 

 the buds, boiled in water-gruel for a breakfast, has effected wonders 

 in a fever ; and the decoction is admirable to assuage inflammations and 

 tetterous humours, and especially the scorbut : but an extract, or 

 theriaca, (so famous in the poem of Nicander,) may be composed of the 

 berries, which is not only efficacious to eradicate this epidemical incon- 

 venience, and greatly to assist longevity, but is a kind of catholicon 

 against all infirmities whatever : and of the same berries is made an 

 incomparable spirit, which drunk by itself, or mingled Avith wine, is not 

 only an excellent drink, but admii-able in the dropsy. In a word, the 

 water of the leaves and berries is approved in the di-opsy, every part of 

 the tree being useful, as may be seen at large in Blocwitzius's Anatomy 

 thereof. The ointment made with the young buds and leaves in May, 

 with butter, is most sovereign for aches, shrunk sinews, hsemorrhoids, &c. 

 and the flowers macerated in vinegar, not only are of a grateful relish, but 

 good to attenuate and cut raw and gross humours. Lastly, the fungus, 

 (which we call Jews'-Ears,) decocted in milk, or macerated in vinegar, 

 is of known effect in the angina and sores of the throat. And less than 

 this I could not say (with the leave of the charitable physician) to gratify 

 our poor woodman ; and yet when I have said all this, I do by no means 

 commend the scent of it, which is very noxious to the air ; and therefore 

 though I do not undertake that all things which sweeten the air are 

 salubrious, nor all ill savours pernicious, yet, as not for its beauty, so 

 neither for its smell, would I plant Elder near my habitation ; since we 

 • De Aeris Icam from Biesius *, that a certain house in Spain, seated among many 

 Elder-trees, diseased and killed almost all the inhabitants, which when 



' Anatomia Sambuci. Lipsiae, ]631. 



