io6 PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
Onions from that which his right foot touched, on which 
account, perhaps, Mohammed habitually fainted at the sight 
of either.” It was the common 
food also of the Roman labourer, 
but Horace could only wonder 
at the “dura messorum illia” 
that could digest the plant 
“cicutis allium nocentius.” It 
was, and is, the same with its 
medical virtues. According to 
some it was possessed of every 
virtue, 1 so that it had the name 
of Poor Man’s Treacle (the 
word treacle not having its 
present meaning, but being the 
Anglicized form of theriake, or 
heal-all 2 ); while, on the other 
hand, Gerard affirmed “ it yieldeth to the body no nourishment 
at all; it ingendreth naughty and sharpe bloud.” 
Bullein describes it quaintly: “It is a grosse kinde of 
medicine, verye unpleasant for fayre Ladies and tender Lilly 
Rose colloured damsels which often time profereth sweet 
breathes before gentle wordes, but both would do very well ” 
(“ Book of Simples ”). Yet if we could only divest it of its evil 
smell, the wild Wood Garlick would rank among the most 
beautiful of our British plants. Its wide leaves are very similar 
to those of the Lily of the Valley, and its starry flowers are of 
the very purest white. But it defies picking, and where it 
grows it generally takes full possession, so that I have known 
1 “You (2. e. citizens) are still sending to the apothecaries, and still 
crying out to ‘ fetch Master Doctor to me; ’ but our (2. e. countrymen’s) 
apothecary’s shop is our garden full of pot herbs, and our doctor is a good 
clove of Garlic.”— The Great Frost of January 1608. 
2 “ Crist, which that is to every harm triacle.” 
Chaucer, Man of Lawes Tale. 
“ Treacle was there anone forthe brought.” 
Le Morte Arthur , 864. 
