HERBS AND THEIR LEAVES.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Culpeper, Nicholas
Salix. Willow leaves, are cold, dry, and binding, stop spitting of blood, and fluxes; the boughs stuck about a chamber, wonderfully cool the air, and refresh such as have fevers; the leaves applied to the head, help hot diseases there, and frenzies.
Sampsucum. Marjoram.
Sunicula. Sanicle; hot and dry in the second degree, cleanses wounds and ulcers.
Saponaria. Sope-wort, or Bruise-wort, vulgarly used in bruises and cut fingers, and is of notable use in the veneral disease.
Satureia. Savory. Summer savory is hot and dry in the third degree, Winter savory is not so hot, both of them expel wind.
Sazifragia alba. White Saxifrage, breaks wind, helps the cholic and stone.
Scabiosa. Scabious: hot and dry in the second degree, cleanses the breast and lungs, helps old rotten coughs, and difficulty of breathing, provokes urine, and cleanses the bladder of filthy stuff, breaks aposthumes, and cures scabs and itch. Boil it in white wine.
Scariola. An Italian name for Succory.
Schœnanthus. Schœnanth, Squinanth, or Chamel’s hay; hot and binding. It digests and opens the passages of the veins: surely it is as great an expeller of wind as any is.
Scordium. Water-Germander, hot and dry, cleanses ulcers in the inward parts, it provokes urine and the menses, opens stopping of the liver, spleen, reins, bladder, and matrix, it is a great counter poison, and eases the breast oppressed with flegm: see Diascordium.
Scrophularia. Figwort, so called of Scrophula, the King’s Evil, which it cures they say, by being only hung about the neck. If not, bruise it, and apply it to the place, it helps the piles or hemorrhoids.
Sedum. And all his sorts: see Barba Jovis.
Senna. It heats in the second degree and dries in the first, cleanses, purges and digests; it carries downward both choler, flegm, and melancholy, it cleanses the brain, heart, liver, spleen; it cheers the senses, opens obstructions, takes away dulness of sight, helps deafness, helps melancholy and madness, resists resolution of the nerves, pains of the head, scabs, itch, falling-sickness, the windiness of it is corrected with a little ginger. You may boil half an ounce of it at a time, in water or white wine, but boil it not too much; half an ounce is a moderate dose to be boiled for any reasonable body.
Serpillum. Mother-of-Time, with Time; it is hot and dry in the third degree, it provokes the menses, and helps the stranguary or stoppage of urine, gripings in the belly, ruptures, convulsions, inflammation of the liver, lethargy, and infirmities of the spleen, boil it in white wine. Ætius, Galen.
Sigillum Solomonis. Solomon’s seal. See the root.
Smyrnium. Alexander of Crete.
Solanum. Night-shade: very cold and dry, binding; it is somewhat dangerous given inwardly, unless by a skilful hand; outwardly it helps the Shingles, St. Anthony’s fire, and other hot inflammations.
Soldanella. Bindweed, hot and dry in the second degree, it opens obstructions of the liver, and purges watery humours, and is therefore very profitable in dropsies, it is very hurtful to the stomach, and therefore if taken inwardly it had need be well corrected with cinnamon, ginger, or annis-seed, &c.
Sonchus levis Asper. Sow-thistles smooth and rough, they are of a cold, watery, yet binding quality, good for frenzies, they increase milk in nurses, and cause the children which they nurse to have a good colour, help gnawings of the stomach coming of a hot cause; outwardly they help inflammations, and hot swellings, cool the heat of the fundament and privities.
Sophi Chirurgorum. Fluxweed: drying without any manifest heat or coldness; it is usually found about old ruinous buildings; it is so called because of its virtue in stopping fluxes.
Shinachia. Spinage. I never read any physical virtues of it.
Spina Alba. See the root.
Spica. See Nardus.
Stæbe. Silver Knapweed: The virtues be the same with Scabious, and some think the herbs too; though I am of another opinion.
Stœchas. French Lavender. Cassidony, is a great counterpoison, opens obstructions of the liver and spleen, cleanses the matrix and bladder, brings out corrupt humours, provokes urine.
Succisa, Marsus Diaboli. Devil’s-bit. Hot and dry in the second degree: inwardly taken, it eases the fits of the mother, and breaks wind, takes away swellings in the mouth, and slimy flegm that stick to the jaws, neither is there a more present remedy in the world for those cold swellings in the neck which the vulgar call the almonds of the ears, than this herb bruised and applied to them.
Suchaha. An Egyptian Thorn. Very hard, if not impossible to come by here.
Tanacetum. Tansy: hot in the second degree and dry in the third; the very smell of it stays abortion, or miscarriages in women; so it doth being bruised and applied to their navels, provokes urine, and is a special help against the gout.
Taraxacon. Dandelion, or to write better French, Dent-de-lion, for in plain English, it is called lyon’s tooth; it is a kind of Succory, and thither I refer you.
Tamariscus. Tamiris. It hath a dry cleansing quality, and hath a notable virtue against the rickets, and infirmities of the spleen, provokes the menses. Galen, Dioscorides.
Telephium. A kind of Opine.
Thlaspi. See Nasturtium.
Thymbra. A wild Savory.
Thymum. Thyme. Hot and dry in the third degree; helps coughs and shortness of breath, provokes the menses, brings away dead children and the after birth; purges flegm, cleanses the breast and lungs, reins and matrix; helps the sciatica, pains in the breast, expels wind in any part of the body, resists fearfulness and melancholy, continual pains in the head, and is profitable for such as have the falling-sickness to smell to.
Thymælea. The Greek name for Spurge-Olive: Mezereon being the Arabick name.
Tithymallus, Esula, &c. Spurge. Hot and dry in the fourth degree: a dogged purge, better let alone than taken inwardly: hair anointed with the juice of it will fall off: it kills fish, being mixed with any thing that they will eat: outwardly it cleanses ulcers, takes away freckles, sunburning and morphew from the face.
Tormentilla. See the root.
Trinitatis herba. Pansies, or Heart’s-ease: They are cold and moist, both herbs and flowers, excellent against inflammations of the breast or lungs, convulsions or falling-sickness, also they are held to be good for venereal complaints.
Trifolium. Trefoil: dry in the third degree, and cold: The ordinary Meadow Trefoil, cleanses the bowels of slimy humours that stick to them, being used either in drinks or clysters; outwardly they take away inflammations.
Tussilago. Colt’s-foot: something cold and dry, and therefore good for inflammations, they are admirably good for coughs, and consumptions of the lungs, shortness of breath, &c. It is often used and with good success taken in a tobacco-pipe, being cut and mixed with a little oil of annis seeds. See the Syrup of Colt’s-foot.