96 ON PLANTS IN RELATION TO ANIMALS. 
physician John of Milan, in which is an account of the 
manifold virtues of the fumitory, commencing thus : 
“ Furmiter is erbe, I say, 
Yt springyth April et in May, 
In feld, in town, in yard, et gate. 
Where lond is fat and good in state, 
Dun red is his flour. 
Ye erbe smoke lik in colour, 
Azeyn feuerys cotidian. 
And azeyn feurys tertyen. 
And azeyn feurys quarteyn, 
It is medicyn soueryn.” 
Burnett, in his e Anatomy of Melancholy/ speaks of it as 
a plant “ not to be omitted by those who are misaffected with 
melancholy, because it will much help and ease the spleen/’ 
Sir John Hill, in his ‘ Herbal/ recommends the leaves 
of the fumitory to be smoked as a remedy “ for disorders of 
the head / and in more modern days Dr. Cullen, who paid 
great attention to the qualities of our native plants, recom¬ 
mended it to be used in diseases of the liver, and says—“its 
remarkable virtues, however, are those of clearing the skin 
of many disorders.” 
Since his day the use of the fumitory in medicine has 
been generally abandoned, lingering only among the 
“simples” of the herbalist in this country, and in the 
Japanese Pharmacopoeia, if there be one. Clare, one of 
our old pastoral poets, alludes to its use as a cosmetic 
thus :— 
“And Fumitory, too, a name 
Which superstition holds to fame, 
Whose red and purple-mottled flowers 
Are cropped by maids in weeding hours. 
To boil in water, milk, and whey, 
Tor washes on a holiday; 
To make their beauty fair and sleek, 
And scare the tan from summer’s cheek ; 
And oft the dame will feel inclined, 
As childhood’s memory comes to mind, 
To turn her hook away, and spare 
The blooms it loved to gather there.” 
Since that time other and, perhaps, more injurious appli¬ 
cations have taken the place of this herb in the mysteries 
of the toilet, for we can scarcely believe that the words of 
old John Ray the naturalist would be better received now 
by the votaries of fashion than they were in his own day, 
when he said—“ No better cosmetics than a strict temper¬ 
ance and purity, modesty, and humility, a gracious temper 
and calmness of spirit; no true beauty without the signa¬ 
tures of these graces in the very countenance.” 
