HERBS AND THEIR LEAVES.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Culpeper, Nicholas
Oleæ folia. Olive leaves: they are hard to come by here.
Ononis. Restharrow. See the roots.
Ophioglossum. Adder’s-tongue. The leaves are very drying: being boiled in oil they make a dainty green balsam for green wounds: taken inwardly, they help inward wounds.
Origanum. Origany: a kind of wild Marjoram; hot and dry in the third degree, helps the bitings of venomous beasts, such as have taken Opium, Hemlock, or Poppy; provokes urine, brings down the menses, helps old coughs; in an ointment it helps scabs and itch.
Oxylapathum. Sorrel. See Acetosa.
Papaver, &c. Poppies, white, black, or erratick. I refer you to the syrups of each.
Parietaria. Given once before under the name of Helxine.
Pastinæa. Parsnips. See the roots.
Persicaria. See Hydropiper. This is the milder sort of Arsmart I described there: If ever you find it amongst the compounds, take it under that notion.
Pentaphyllium. Cinquefoil: very drying, yet but meanly hot, if at all; helps ulcers in the mouth, roughness of the wind-pipe (whence comes hoarsness and coughs, &c.) helps fluxes, creeping ulcers, and the yellow jaundice; they say one leaf cures a quotidian ague, three a tertain, and four a quartan. I know it will cure agues without this curiosity, if a wise man have the handling of it; otherwise a cart load will not do it.
Petroselinum. Parsley. See Smallage.
Per Columbinus. See Geranium.
Persicarium folia. Peach Leaves: they are a gentle, yet a complete purger of choler, and disease coming from thence; fit for children because of their gentleness. You may boil them in white wine: a handfull is enough at a time.
Pilosella. Mouse-ear: once before and this is often enough.
Pithyusa. A new name for Spurge of the last Edition.
Plantago. Plantain. Cold and dry; an herb, though common, yet let none despise it, for the decoction of it prevails mightily against tormenting pains and excoriations of the entrails, bloody fluxes, it stops the menses, and spitting of blood, phthisicks, or consumptions of the lungs, the running of the reins, and the Fluor Albus, pains in the head, and frenzies: outwardly it clears the sight, takes away inflammations, scabs, itch, the shingles, and all spreading sores, and is as wholesome an herb as can grow about any an house. Tragus, Dioscorides.
Polium, &c. Polley, or Pellamountain: All the sorts are hot in the second degree, and dry in the third: helps dropsies, the yellow jaundice, infirmities of the spleen, and provokes urine. Dioscorides.
Polygonum. Knotgrass.
Polytricum. Maidenhair.
Portulaca. Purslain: Cold and moist in the second or third degree: cools hot stomachs, and it is admirable for one that hath his teeth on edge by eating sour apples, it cools the blood, liver, and is good for hot diseases, or inflammations in any of these places, stops fluxes, and the menses, and helps all inward inflammations whatsoever.
Porrum. Leeks. See the roots.
Primula Veris. See Cowslips, or the Flowers, which you will.
Prunella. Self-heal, Carpenter’s-herb, and Sicklewort. Moderately hot and dry, binding. See Bugle, the virtues being the same.
Pulegium. Pennyroyal; hot and dry in the third degree; provokes urine, breaks the stone in the reins, strengthens women’s backs, provokes the menses, easeth their labour in child-bed, brings away the placenta, stays vomiting, strengthens the brain, breaks wind, and helps the vertigo.
Pulmonaria, arborea, et Symphytum maculosum. Lung-wort. It helps infirmities of the lungs, as hoarsness, coughs, wheezing, shortness of breath, &c. You may boil it in Hyssop-water, or any other water that strengthens the lungs.
Pulicaria. Fleabane; hot and dry in the third degree, helps the biting of venomous beasts, wounds and swellings, the yellow jaundice, the falling sickness, and such as cannot make water; being burnt, the smoak of it kills all the gnats and fleas in the chamber; it is dangerous for pregnant women.
Pyrus sylvestris. Wild Pear-tree. I know no virtue in the leaves.
Pyrola. Winter-green. Cold and dry, and very binding, stops fluxes, and the menses, and is admirably good in green wounds.
Quercus folia. Oak Leaves: Are much of the nature of the former, stay the Fluor Albus. See the bark.
Ranunculus. Hath got a sort of English Names: Crowfoot, King-kob, Gold-cups, Gold-knobs, Butter-flowers, &c. they are of a notable hot quality, unfit to be taken inwardly: If you bruise the roots and apply them to a plague-sore, they are notable things to draw the venom to them.
Raparum folia. If they do mean Turnip leaves, when they are young and tender, they are held to provoke urine.
Rosmarirum. Rosemary, hot and dry in the second degree, binding, stops fluxes, helps stuffings in the head, the yellow jaundice, helps the memory, expels wind. See the flowers. Serapio, Dioscorides.
Rosa solis. See the water.
Rosa alba, rubra, Damascena. White, Red, and Damask Roses.
Rumex. Dock; All the ordinary sort of Docks are of a cool and drying substance, and therefore stop fluxes; and the leaves are seldom used in physic.
Rubus Idæus: Raspis, Raspberries, or Hind-berries: I know no great virtues in the leaves.
Ruta. Rue, or Herb of Grace; hot and dry in the third degree, consumes the seed, and is an enemy to generation, helps difficulty of breathing, and inflammations of the lungs, pains in the sides, inflammations of the priapus and matrix, naught for pregnant women: no herb resists poison more. It strengthens the heart exceedingly, and no herb better than this in pestilential times, take it what manner you will or can.
Ruta Muraria. See Adianthum.
Sabina. Savin: hot and dry in the third degree, potently provokes the menses, expels both birth and afterbirth, they (boiled in oil and used in ointments) stay creeping ulcers, scour away spots, freckles and sunburning from the face; the belly anointed with it kills worms in children.
Salvia. Sage: hot and dry in the second or third degree, binding, it stays abortion in such women as are subject to come before their times, it causes fruitfulness, it is singularly good for the brain, strengthens the senses and memory, helps spitting and vomiting of blood: outwardly, heat hot with a little vinegar and applied to the side, helps stitches and pains in the sides.