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Nicholas Culpeper's "The Complete Herbal" serves as a seminal text in the realm of herbal medicine and its application in the early 17th century. Written in an accessible style, Culpeper's work synthesizes classical wisdom from ancient herbalists with practical instructions for misusing herbs in the treatment of common ailments. His innovative use of the vernacular language invites a broader audience to engage with herbalism, eschewing the elitist approaches of his contemporaries. This book not only catalogues an extensive array of plants and their medicinal properties but also is embedded within the context of burgeoning interest in natural remedies, countering the increasingly commercial interests of established medical practitioners of the time. Culpeper, a self-taught herbalist and astrologer, was born into a tumultuous era marked by political strife and social transformation that shaped his disdain for conventional medicine. His personal experiences with illness and his quest for empirical knowledge led him to cultivate a deep understanding of plants and their healing properties. Culpeper's background in astrology intertwined with his herbal practices provided an innovative framework to approach healing as an interconnected art, thus enhancing the epistemology of medicine during the early modern period. I highly recommend "The Complete Herbal" to anyone interested in the intricate relationship between nature and health, as well as the historical evolution of herbalist practices. Whether you are a medicinal practitioner, a history enthusiast, or a curious layperson, Culpeper's enlightening perspectives on botany and healing offer a timeless resource that resonates with ongoing discussions about natural medicine today. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A succinct Introduction situates the work's timeless appeal and themes. - The Synopsis outlines the central plot, highlighting key developments without spoiling critical twists. - A detailed Historical Context immerses you in the era's events and influences that shaped the writing. - A thorough Analysis dissects symbols, motifs, and character arcs to unearth underlying meanings. - Reflection questions prompt you to engage personally with the work's messages, connecting them to modern life. - Hand‐picked Memorable Quotes shine a spotlight on moments of literary brilliance. - Interactive footnotes clarify unusual references, historical allusions, and archaic phrases for an effortless, more informed read.
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The Complete Herbal
Table of Contents
Introduction
The Complete Herbal pivots on the struggle between elite medical secrecy and the vernacular conviction that remedies and plant wisdom should circulate among all who need them. Composed by the English physician and herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, this work belongs to the early modern genre of herbals and practical materia medica. Issued in mid-seventeenth-century England, it appeared in a climate of expanding print, contested authority, and everyday demand for accessible guidance. Culpeper’s project gathers plants, their qualities, and their reputed virtues into English prose, positioning the countryside and the household as legitimate sites of knowledge and care alongside the shop, the lecture hall, and the guild.
As a reading experience, The Complete Herbal unfolds as a succession of plant-centered entries that blend observation, reported use, and period medicine. Culpeper’s voice is forthright and often combative, yet his style is brisk, concrete, and intent on utility. He writes in plain English, arranging names, descriptions, and preparations while assigning planetary influences according to contemporary astrological frameworks. The tone is practical rather than mystical; counsel on gathering, timing, and compounding keeps the book close to labor and season. Readers encounter an organized, workmanlike companion that treats language as a tool and the hedgerow as a dispensary.
The book emerges from a specific setting: early modern England’s fields, gardens, and marketplaces, filtered through the bustling presses and debates of London. It speaks from a moment when the learned Latin of medicine guarded professional boundaries, and when householders, midwives, and apothecaries navigated illness with a mix of tradition, experience, and commerce. Culpeper stands at this crossroads, translating specialist knowledge into vernacular form and challenging the authority of gatekeeping institutions, including the College of Physicians. The result is a manual that imagines the common reader not as a passive patient but as an active participant in the work of maintaining health.
Several themes structure the book’s enduring interest. First is the politics of knowledge: who may read, interpret, and use medicinal information, and at what cost. Second is the weave of explanations—humoral theory, astrological correspondences, and close attention to locality—that frames the relation between body and environment. Third is practicality: gathering, storing, and preparing as forms of household expertise. Culpeper’s synthesis invites readers to see nature as an intelligible, approachable resource while also exposing the contested line between empirical observation and inherited doctrine, a line that makes the book as argumentative as it is instructive.
For contemporary readers, The Complete Herbal matters less as a set of prescriptions than as a window onto the history of science, language, and public health. It reveals a culture negotiating access to care, the cost of medicines, and the credibility of authorities—questions that resonate beyond its century. It also models a vernacular science that values attentiveness to place and season. At the same time, its medical claims belong to its era and should be read critically, not as present-day guidance. Approached as cultural and intellectual history, it illuminates how communities organize, share, and contest practical knowledge.
Culpeper’s style rewards slow browsing. Entries often yoke sensory detail—habit, habitat, flavor—to judgments of temperament and use, producing vivid portraits that sit between field notes and domestic instruction. The prose is vigorous and sometimes caustic, animated by a conviction that clarity is an ethical duty. Astrological attributions appear as a system of ordering rather than ornament, reflecting a world in which the heavens were thought to pattern earthly processes. The cadence of seventeenth-century English is unmistakable but accessible, and the book’s architecture invites readers to consult, compare, and assemble their own maps of plants and places.
To read The Complete Herbal today is to practice double vision: sympathetic attention to its aims and methods, and critical distance from its medical framework. As a companion, it offers craft knowledge, rhetorical fire, and a patient apprenticeship to the textures of the natural world. As a document, it charts the movement of expertise from Latin to English, from closed chambers to common tables. In that movement lies its central achievement and its provocation: the insistence that understanding grows when words cross thresholds. Enter with curiosity and care, and the book will repay both with perspective.
Synopsis
Nicholas Culpeper’s The Complete Herbal, first published in 1653, sets out to make medical knowledge available to readers who lacked access to Latin texts and costly physicians. Drawing on classical authorities and contemporary practice, Culpeper compiles a wide-ranging catalogue of plants used in seventeenth-century England and beyond. He frames the book as a practical aid for householders and practitioners, presenting remedies that could be gathered, prepared, and administered without elaborate equipment. Throughout, he positions the natural world as a storehouse of medicines, arguing that careful observation and orderly method can guide safe use. The work’s tone is instructive, confident, and reform-minded.
The volume proceeds through a series of plant entries organized for ready reference, generally arranged by common English names. Each entry supplies identifying details—forms, leaves, flowers, and habitat—so readers can distinguish one species from another. Culpeper then notes when a plant is typically in season and which parts are most useful, before assigning a planetary ruler and describing therapeutic actions. The structure moves from recognition to application: from description, to qualities, to uses. In doing so, the book ties botanical knowledge to practical medicine, offering repeatable steps a reader can follow from field to remedy.
Culpeper’s interpretive framework blends Galenic humoral theory with astrology. He evaluates herbs by their perceived heat, cold, dryness, or moisture, and relates those qualities to bodily imbalances involved in illness. Planetary correspondences serve to classify plants and, for Culpeper, to illuminate why particular herbs might suit certain conditions. This synthesis grants an explanatory armature to observations long used in vernacular medicine, placing them within an early modern scheme of causation. Rather than treating astrology as ornament, the book uses it as a tool of selection and differentiation, helping readers navigate a crowded materia medica with consistent categories and stated rationales.
Alongside diagnosis and classification, the book attends closely to practice. Culpeper instructs readers to collect herbs at appropriate seasons, to separate roots, leaves, seeds, and flowers according to their differing strengths, and to prepare medicines in forms suited to the ailment. He describes household methods—infusions, decoctions, syrups, conserves, oils, ointments, plasters, and distilled waters—and comments on storage and spoilage. Directions emphasize economy and accessibility, aiming to replace secrecy with clarity. The result is a manual that links plant morphology to preparation choices, encouraging careful measurement, attention to the patient’s constitution, and adaptation of form and dose to the condition being treated.
The entries address a broad span of everyday complaints: digestive upsets, fevers, wounds, skin eruptions, coughs, stone and gravel, and ailments specific to childbirth and menstruation. Culinary and garden plants figure prominently, underscoring medicine’s presence in ordinary life. Culpeper assigns plantain to staunch bleeding and soothe stings, comfrey to knit and bind tissues, wormwood to stimulate a sluggish stomach, elder to relieve catarrh and promote sweating, and mugwort to support reproductive health. These examples illustrate the book’s wider pattern: matching recognizable symptoms to plants of contrasting or complementary qualities, and recommending preparations that suit both the plant’s virtues and the patient’s condition.
Although practical, the work is far from uncritical of prevailing medical institutions. Culpeper, known for translating the London Pharmacopoeia into English, continues his campaign for open access by rejecting the exclusivity of Latin prescriptions and high fees. He also recognizes limits, cautioning against overuse of potent simples and acknowledging poisonous species that demand expertise. Repeatedly, he urges readers to attend to individual constitutions and to proceed with restraint. The implicit tension—between empowering lay practice and respecting the dangers of strong medicines—animates the book’s didactic stance, situating it between professional authority and the household knowledge it seeks to strengthen.
The Complete Herbal endures as a foundational document of English-language herbalism and a window into early modern science and culture. While many particulars reflect the medical theories of its time, the book’s larger achievement lies in its synthesis of botanical description, therapeutic reasoning, and practical instruction. It preserves a record of remedies that shaped everyday care, and it exemplifies a program to democratize medical learning. For modern readers, it offers insight into historical ways of understanding the body and nature, and it continues to inform scholarship on the circulation of knowledge, public health, and the boundaries between expert and lay medicine.
Historical Context
Published in 1653, The Complete Herbal emerged in London during the upheavals of mid-seventeenth-century England. The metropolis was a crowded commercial hub where medicine was regulated by the College of Physicians of London (chartered 1518) and supplied by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries (separated from the Grocers in 1617). Learned medicine was taught in Latin at Oxford and Cambridge, and access to licensed physicians was expensive for most Londoners. Everyday healthcare relied on household remedies, midwives, barber-surgeons, and apothecaries. In this setting, printed herbals - practical guides to identifying and using plants - circulated alongside official formularies that codified approved drugs and compounded preparations.
Herbal literature had deep roots. European practitioners drew on classical sources such as Dioscorides' De Materia Medica and Galen, transmitted through medieval manuscripts and early printed editions. In England, John Gerard's Herball (1597), expanded by Thomas Johnson in 1633, illustrated hundreds of species and helped standardize plant descriptions. Physic gardens, including the Oxford garden founded in 1621, provided living collections for study and supply. Yet botanical taxonomy remained unstable, and vernacular plant names varied by region. Against this backdrop, Nicholas Culpeper compiled plant uses in accessible English, aiming to connect botanical description, traditional uses, and the practical needs of householders and apothecaries.
The English Civil War (1642-1651) and subsequent Commonwealth (1649-1660) reshaped authority in church, state, and medicine. Culpeper supported the Parliamentarian cause, served with their forces as a practitioner, and suffered wounds during the conflict. War, inflation, and instability strained urban health and interrupted the routines of licensed practice. From his shop in Spitalfields, outside the City's strictest jurisdiction, Culpeper treated many poor patients and gathered observations on local flora. His experience during the wars reinforced a preference for inexpensive, readily available remedies over elaborate imported compounds. The Complete Herbal reflects these circumstances by emphasizing English plants and practical recipes.
Seventeenth-century print culture enabled Culpeper's wide reach. The abolition of the Star Chamber in 1641 weakened pre-war censorship, and the London book trade expanded despite later attempts at control. Almanacs and ephemerides sold in huge numbers, and Culpeper contributed annual astrological guides that cultivated a large readership. He also issued an English translation of the College of Physicians' Pharmacopoeia Londinensis (1652), challenging its Latin exclusivity and price. The Complete Herbal appeared in 1653, using plain English descriptions and indices. These publications provoked vigorous objections from the College, which saw unauthorized translation and popularization as threats to professional regulation.
Medical theory in Culpeper's day remained largely Galenic, organized around balances of the four humors and managed by regimen, purging, and bleeding. At the same time, Paracelsian iatrochemistry had introduced chemical remedies and new ideas about specific diseases. Astrology also informed medical timing and diagnosis; almanacs advised when to let blood or administer purges. Culpeper integrated this cosmology, assigning planetary rulers to herbs and recommending auspicious times for gathering and use. His classifications draw on both learned authorities and hands-on practice, presenting materia medica within a framework intelligible to readers accustomed to astrological calendars and humoral explanations of illness.
The period's medical marketplace was shaped by trade in exotic drugs - rhubarb, senna, guaiacum, opiates, and spices - imported through companies such as the Levant Company and the East India Company. Periodic shortages, costs, and wartime disruptions encouraged practitioners to turn to local substitutes. The College's Pharmacopoeia prescribed many complex compound preparations that were costly for the poor. Culpeper promoted English-grown herbs and simpler formulations, arguing that effective remedies could be gathered from fields and hedgerows. The Complete Herbal's emphasis on native plants and practical preparation methods aligned with household medicine and the needs of apothecaries who compounded affordable remedies for neighborhoods.
Institutions and credentials were central to disputes that framed Culpeper's work. University-trained physicians, often with degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, were licensed by the College of Physicians to practice in London and its vicinity. Apothecaries, organized under their 1617 charter, dispensed medicines and frequently advised patients, blurring professional boundaries. Because fees, Latin texts, and licensing kept elite medicine out of reach for many, popular medical books served as adjuncts to self-care. Culpeper's insistence on English, detailed indices, and guidance on dose and preparation responded to this demand, implicitly challenging restrictions that reserved medical knowledge and practice to credentialed elites.
The Complete Herbal thus mirrors its era's tensions between authority and accessibility. It compiles ancient and Renaissance learning, field observation, and apothecaries' practice, yet addresses lay readers in everyday English. By pairing plant descriptions with indications, cautions, and astrological attributions, it offers an alternative to Latin monopolies and expensive compound drugs. The work circulated widely, was reprinted many times, and influenced later popular medicine in Britain and its colonies. Although the rise of experimental science after 1660 and later pharmacology transformed medical standards, Culpeper's book endured as a critique of professional exclusivity and a landmark of vernacular medical publishing.
The Complete Herbal
CULPEPER’SORIGINAL EPISTLE TO THE READER.
TAKE Notice, That in this Edition I have made very many Additions to every sheet in the book: and, also, that those books of mine that are printed of that Letter the small Bibles are printed with, are very falsely printed: there being twenty or thirty gross mistakes in every sheet, many of them such as are exceedingly dangerous to such as shall venture to use them: And therefore I do warn the Public of them: I can do no more at present; only take notice of these Directions by which you shall be sure to know the True one from the False.
The first Direction.—The true one hath this Title over the head of every Book, The Complete Herbal and English Physician enlarged. The small Counterfeit ones have only this Title, The English Physician.
The second Direction.—The true one hath these words, Government and Virtues, following the time of the Plants flowering, &c. The counterfeit small ones have these words, Virtues and Use, following the time of the Plants flowering.
The third Direction.—The true one is of a larger Letter than the counterfeit ones, which are in Twelves, &c., of the Letter small Bibles used to be printed on. I shall now speak something of the book itself.
All other Authors that have written of the nature of Herbs, give not a bit of reason why such an Herb was appropriated to such a part of the body, nor why it cured such a disease. Truly my own body being sickly, brought me easily into a capacity, to know that health was the greatest of all earthly blessings, and truly he was never sick that doth not believe it. Then I considered that all medicines were compounded of Herbs, Roots, Flowers, Seeds, &c., and this first set me to work in studying the nature of simples, most of which I knew by sight before; and indeed all the Authors I could read gave me but little satisfaction in this particular, or none at all. I cannot build my faith upon Authors’ words, nor believe a thing because they say it, and could wish every body were of my mind in this—to labour to be able to give a reason for every thing they say or do. They say Reason makes a man differ from a Beast; if that be true, pray what are they that, instead of reason for their judgment, quote old Authors? Perhaps their authors knew a reason for what they wrote, perhaps they did not; what is that to us? Do we know it? Truly in writing this work first, to satisfy myself, I drew out all the virtues of the vulgar or common Herbs, Plants, and Trees, &c., out of the best or most approved authors I had, or could get; and having done so, I set myself to study the reason of them. I knew well enough the whole world, and every thing in it, was formed of a composition of contrary elements, and in such a harmony as must needs show the wisdom and power of a great God. I knew as well this Creation, though thus composed of contraries, was one united body, and man an epitome of it: I knew those various affections in man, in respect of sickness and health, were caused naturally (though God may have other ends best known to himself) by the various operations of the Microcosm; and I could not be ignorant, that as the cause is, so must the cure be; and therefore he that would know the reason of the operation of the Herbs, must look up as high as the Stars, astrologically. I always found the disease vary according to the various motions of the Stars; and this is enough, one would think, to teach a man by the effect where the cause lies. Then to find out the reason of the operation of Herbs, Plants, &c., by the Stars went I; and herein I could find but few authors, but those as full of nonsense and contradiction as an egg is full of meat. This not being pleasing, and less profitable to me, I consulted with my two brothers, Dr. Reason and Dr. Experience, and took a voyage to visit my mother Nature, by whose advice, together with the help of Dr. Diligence, I at last obtained my desire; and, being warned by Mr. Honesty, a stranger in our days, to publish it to the world, I have done it.
But you will say, What need I have written on this Subject, seeing so many famous and learned men have written so much of it in the English Tongue, much more than I have done?
To this I answer, neither Gerrard nor Parkinson, or any that ever wrote in the like nature, ever gave one wise reason for what they wrote, and so did nothing else but train up young novices in Physic in the School of tradition, and teach them just as a parrot is taught to speak; an Author says so, therefore it is true; and if all that Authors say be true, why do they contradict one another? But in mine, if you view it with the eye of reason, you shall see a reason for everything that is written, whereby you may find the very ground and foundation of Physic; you may know what you do, and wherefore you do it; and this shall call me Father, it being (that I know of) never done in the world before.
I have now but two things to write, and then I have done.
1. What the profit and benefit of this Work is.2. Instructions in the use of it.1. The profit and benefit arising from it, or that may occur to a wise man from it are many; so many that should I sum up all the particulars, my Epistle would be as big as my Book; I shall quote some few general heads.
First. The admirable Harmony of the Creation is herein seen, in the influence of Stars upon Herbs and the Body of Man, how one part of the Creation is subservient to another, and all for the use of Man, whereby the infinite power and wisdom of God in the creation appear; and if I do not admire at the simplicity of the Ranters[1], never trust me; who but viewing the Creation can hold such a sottish opinion, as that it was from eternity, when the mysteries of it are so clear to every eye? but that Scripture shall be verified to them, Rom. i. 20: “The invisible things of him from the Creation of the World are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his Eternal Power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”—And a Poet could teach them a better lesson;
This indeed is true, God has stamped his image on every creature, and therefore the abuse of the creature is a great sin; but how much the more do the wisdom and excellency of God appear, if we consider the harmony of the Creation in the virtue and operation of every Herb!
Secondly, Hereby you may know what infinite knowledge Adam had in his innocence, that by looking upon a creature, he was able to give it a name according to its nature; and by knowing that, thou mayest know how great thy fall was and be humbled for it even in this respect, because hereby thou art so ignorant.
Thirdly, Here is the right way for thee to begin at the study of Physic, if thou art minded to begin at the right end, for here thou hast the reason of the whole art. I wrote before in certain Astrological Lectures, which I read, and printed, intituled, Astrological Judgment of Diseases, what planet caused (as a second cause) every disease, how it might be found out what planet caused it; here thou hast what planet cures it by Sympathy and Antipathy; and this brings me to my last promise, viz.
Instructions for the right use of the book.
And herein let me premise a word or two. The Herbs, Plants, &c. are now in the book appropriated to their proper planets. Therefore,
First, Consider what planet causeth the disease; that thou mayest find it in my aforesaid Judgment of Diseases.
Secondly, Consider what part of the body is afflicted by the disease, and whether it lies in the flesh, or blood, or bones, or ventricles.
Thirdly, Consider by what planet the afflicted part of the body is governed: that my Judgment of Diseases will inform you also.
Fourthly, You may oppose diseases by Herbs of the planet, opposite to the planet that causes them: as diseases of Jupiter by herbs of Mercury, and the contrary; diseases of the Luminaries by the herbs of Saturn, and the contrary; diseases of Mars by herbs of Venus, and the contrary.
Fifthly, There is a way to cure diseases sometimes by Sympathy, and so every planet cures his own disease; as the Sun and Moon by their Herbs cure the Eyes, Saturn the Spleen, Jupiter the liver, Mars the Gall and diseases of choler, and Venus diseases in the instruments of Generation.
NICH. CULPEPER.
From my House in Spitalfields,next door to the Red Lion,September 5, 1653.
TO HIS DEAREST CONSORT MRS. ALICE CULPEPER.
My dearest,
THE works that I have published to the world (though envied by some illiterate physicians) have merited such just applause, that thou mayest be confident in proceeding to publish anything I leave thee, especially this master-piece: assuring my friends and countrymen, that they will receive as much benefit by this, as by my Dispensatory, and that incomparable piece called, Semiotica Uranica enlarged, and English Physician.
These are the choicest secrets, which I have had many years locked up in my own breast. I gained them by my constant practice, and by them I maintained a continual reputation in the world, and I doubt not but the world will honour thee for divulging them; and my fame shall continue and increase thereby, though the period of my Life and Studies be at hand, and I must now bid all things under the sun farewell. Farewell, my dear wife and child; farewell, Arts and Sciences, which I so dearly loved; farewell, all worldly glories; adieu, readers,
Nicholas Culpeper.
Nicholas Culpeper, the Author of this Work, was son of Nicholas Culpeper, a Clergyman, and grandson of Sir Thomas Culpeper, Bart. He was some time a student in the university of Cambridge, and soon after was bound apprentice to an Apothecary. He employed all his leisure hours in the study of Physic and Astrology, which he afterwards professed, and set up business in Spitalfields, next door to the Red Lion, (formerly known as the Half-way House between Islington and Stepney, an exact representation of which we have given under our Author’s Portrait), where he had considerable practice, and was much resorted to for his advice, which he gave to the poor gratis. Astrological Doctors have always been highly respected; and those celebrated Physicians of the early times, whom our Author seems to have particularly studied, Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicen, regarded those as homicides who were ignorant of Astrology. Paracelsus, indeed, went farther; he declared, a Physician should be predestinated to the cure of his patient; and the horoscope should be inspected, the plants gathered at the critical moment, &c.
Culpeper was a writer and translator of several Works, the most celebrated of which is his Herbal, “being an astrologo-physical discourse of the common herbs of the nation; containing a complete Method or Practice of Physic, whereby a Man may preserve his Body in Health, or cure himself when sick, with such things only as grow in England, they being most fit for English Constitutions.”
This celebrated, and useful Physician died at his house in Spitalfields, in the year 1654. This Book will remain as a lasting monument of his skill and industry.
“Culpeper, the man that first ranged the woods and climbed the mountains in search of medicinal and salutary herbs, has undoubtedly merited the gratitude of posterity.”—Dr. Johnson.
THE ENGLISH PHYSICIANENLARGED.
AMARA DULCIS.
CONSIDERING divers shires in this nation give divers names to one and the same herb, and that the common name which it bears in one county, is not known in another; I shall take the pains to set down all the names that I know of each herb: pardon me for setting that name first, which is most common to myself. Besides Amara Dulcis[2], some call it Mortal, others Bitter-sweet; some Woody Night-shade, and others Felon-wort.
Descript.] It grows up with woody stalks even to a man’s height, and sometimes higher. The leaves fall off at the approach of winter, and spring out of the same stalk at spring-time: the branch is compassed about with a whitish bark, and has a pith in the middle of it: the main branch branches itself into many small ones with claspers, laying hold on what is next to them, as vines do: it bears many leaves, they grow in no order at all, at least in no regular order; the leaves are longish, though somewhat broad, and pointed at the ends: many of them have two little leaves growing at the end of their foot-stalk; some have but one, and some none. The leaves are of a pale green colour; the flowers are of a purple colour, or of a perfect blue, like to violets, and they stand many of them together in knots: the berries are green at first, but when they are ripe they are very red; if you taste them, you shall find them just as the crabs which we in Sussex call Bittersweet, viz. sweet at first and bitter afterwards.
Place.] They grow commonly almost throughout England, especially in moist and shady places.
Time.] The leaves shoot out about the latter end of March, if the temperature of the air be ordinary; it flowers in July, and the seeds are ripe soon after, usually in the next month.
Government and virtues.] It is under the planet Mercury, and a notable herb of his also, if it be rightly gathered under his influence. It is excellently good to remove witchcraft both in men and beasts, as also all sudden diseases whatsoever[1q]. Being tied round about the neck, is one of the most admirable remedies for the vertigo or dizziness in the head; and that is the reason (as Tragus saith) the people in Germany commonly hang it about their cattle’s necks, when they fear any such evil hath betided them: Country people commonly take the berries of it, and having bruised them, apply them to felons, and thereby soon rid their fingers of such troublesome guests.
We have now showed you the external use of the herb; we shall speak a word or two of the internal, and so conclude. Take notice, it is a Mercurial herb, and therefore of very subtile parts, as indeed all Mercurial plants are; therefore take a pound of the wood and leaves together, bruise the wood (which you may easily do, for it is not so hard as oak) then put it in a pot, and put to it three pints of white wine, put on the pot-lid and shut it close; and let it infuse hot over a gentle fire twelve hours, then strain it out, so have you a most excellent drink to open obstructions of the liver and spleen, to help difficulty of breath, bruises and falls, and congealed blood in any part of the body, it helps the yellow jaundice, the dropsy, and black jaundice, and to cleanse women newly brought to bed. You may drink a quarter of a pint of the infusion every morning. It purges the body very gently, and not churlishly as some hold. And when you find good by this, remember me.
They that think the use of these medicines is too brief, it is only for the cheapness of the book; let them read those books of mine, of the last edition, viz.Reverius, Veslingus, Riolanus, Johnson, Sennertus, and Physic for the Poor.
ALL-HEAL.
It is called All-heal, Hercules’s All-heal, and Hercules’s Woundwort, because it is supposed that Hercules learned the herb and its virtues from Chiron, when he learned physic of him. Some call it Panay, and others Opopane-wort.
Descript.] Its root is long, thick, and exceeding full of juice, of a hot and biting taste, the leaves are great and large, and winged almost like ash-tree leaves, but that they are something hairy, each leaf consisting of five or six pair of such wings set one against the other upon foot-stalks, broad below, but narrow towards the end; one of the leaves is a little deeper at the bottom than the other, of a fair yellowish fresh green colour: they are of a bitterish taste, being chewed in the mouth; from among these rises up a stalk, green in colour, round in form, great and strong in magnitude, five or six feet in altitude, with many joints, and some leaves thereat; towards the top come forth umbels of small yellow flowers, after which are passed away, you may find whitish, yellow, short, flat seeds, bitter also in taste.
Place.] Having given you a description of the herb from bottom to top, give me leave to tell you, that there are other herbs called by this name; but because they are strangers in England, I give only the description of this, which is easily to be had in the gardens of divers places.
Time.] Although Gerrard saith, that they flower from the beginning of May to the end of December, experience teaches them that keep it in their gardens, that it flowers not till the latter end of the summer, and sheds its seeds presently after.
Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Mars, hot, biting, and choleric; and remedies what evils Mars inflicts the body of man with, by sympathy, as vipers’ flesh attracts poison, and the loadstone iron. It kills the worms, helps the gout, cramp, and convulsions, provokes urine, and helps all joint-aches. It helps all cold griefs of the head, the vertigo, falling-sickness, the lethargy, the wind cholic, obstructions of the liver and spleen, stone in the kidneys and bladder. It provokes the terms, expels the dead birth: it is excellent good for the griefs of the sinews, itch, stone, and tooth-ache, the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts, and purges choler very gently.
ALKANET.
Besides the common name, it is called Orchanet, and Spanish Bugloss, and by apothecaries, Enchusa.
Descript.] Of the many sorts of this herb, there is but one known to grow commonly in this nation; of which one take this description: It hath a great and thick root, of a reddish colour, long, narrow, hairy leaves, green like the leaves of Bugloss, which lie very thick upon the ground; the stalks rise up compassed round about, thick with leaves, which are less and narrower than the former; they are tender, and slender, the flowers are hollow, small, and of a reddish colour.
Place.] It grows in Kent near Rochester, and in many places in the West Country, both in Devonshire and Cornwall.
Time.] They flower in July and the beginning of August, and the seed is ripe soon after, but the root is in its prime, as carrots and parsnips are, before the herb runs up to stalk.
Government and virtues.] It is an herb under the dominion of Venus, and indeed one of her darlings, though somewhat hard to come by. It helps old ulcers, hot inflammations, burnings by common fire, and St. Anthony’s fire[8], by antipathy to Mars; for these uses, your best way is to make it into an ointment; also, if you make a vinegar of it, as you make vinegar of roses, it helps the morphew and leprosy; if you apply the herb to the privities, it draws forth the dead child. It helps the yellow jaundice, spleen, and gravel in the kidneys. Dioscorides[3] saith it helps such as are bitten by a venomous beast, whether it be taken inwardly, or applied to the wound; nay, he saith further, if any one that hath newly eaten it, do but spit into the mouth of a serpent, the serpent instantly dies. It stays the flux of the belly, kills worms, helps the fits of the mother. Its decoction made in wine, and drank, strengthens the back, and eases the pains thereof: It helps bruises and falls, and is as gallant a remedy to drive out the small pox and measles as any is; an ointment made of it, is excellent for green wounds, pricks or thrusts.
ADDER’S TONGUE OR SERPENT’S TONGUE.
Descript.] This herb has but one leaf, which grows with the stalk a finger’s length above the ground, being flat and of a fresh green colour; broad like Water Plantain, but less, without any rib in it; from the bottom of which leaf, on the inside, rises up (ordinarily) one, sometimes two or three slender stalks, the upper half whereof is somewhat bigger, and dented with small dents of a yellowish green colour, like the tongue of an adder serpent (only this is as useful as they are formidable). The roots continue all the year.
Place.] It grows in moist meadows, and such like places.
Time.] It is to be found in May or April, for it quickly perishes with a little heat.
Government and virtues.] It is an herb under the dominion of the Moon and Cancer, and therefore if the weakness of the retentive faculty be caused by an evil influence of Saturn in any part of the body governed by the Moon, or under the dominion of Cancer, this herb cures it by sympathy: It cures these diseases after specified, in any part of the body under the influence of Saturn, by antipathy.
It is temperate in respect of heat, but dry in the second degree. The juice of the leaves, drank with the distilled water of Horse-tail, is a singular remedy for all manner of wounds in the breast, bowels, or other parts of the body, and is given with good success to those that are troubled with casting, vomiting, or bleeding at the mouth or nose, or otherwise downwards. The said juice given in the distilled water of Oaken-buds, is very good for women who have their usual courses, or the whites flowing down too abundantly. It helps sore eyes. Of the leaves infused or boiled in oil, omphacine or unripe olives, set in the sun four certain days, or the green leaves sufficiently boiled in the said oil, is made an excellent green balsam, not only for green and fresh wounds, but also for old and inveterate ulcers, especially if a little fine clear turpentine be dissolved therein. It also stays and refreshes all inflammations that arise upon pains by hurts and wounds.
What parts of the body are under each planet and sign, and also what disease may be found in my astrological judgment of diseases; and for the internal work of nature in the body of man; as vital, animal, natural and procreative spirits of man; the apprehension, judgment, memory; the external senses, viz. seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and feeling; the virtuous, attractive, retentive, digestive, expulsive, &c. under the dominion of what planets they are, may be found in my Ephemeris for the year 1651. In both which you shall find the chaff of authors blown away by the fame of Dr. Reason, and nothing but rational truths left for the ingenious to feed upon.
Lastly. To avoid blotting paper with one thing many times, and also to ease your purses in the price of the book, and withal to make you studious in physic; you have at the latter end of the book, the way of preserving all herbs either in juice, conserve, oil, ointment or plaister, electuary, pills, or troches.
AGRIMONY.
Descript.] This has divers long leaves (some greater, some smaller) set upon a stalk, all of them dented about the edges, green above, and greyish underneath, and a little hairy withal. Among which arises up usually but one strong, round, hairy, brown stalk, two or three feet high, with smaller leaves set here and there upon it. At the top thereof grow many small yellow flowers, one above another, in long spikes; after which come rough heads of seed, hanging downwards, which will cleave to and stick upon garments, or any thing that shall rub against them. The knot is black, long, and somewhat woody, abiding many years, and shooting afresh every Spring; which root, though small, hath a reasonable good scent.
Place.] It grows upon banks, near the sides of hedges.
Time.] It flowers in July and August, the seed being ripe shortly after.
Government and virtues.] It is an herb under Jupiter, and the sign Cancer; and strengthens those parts under the planet and sign, and removes diseases in them by sympathy, and those under Saturn, Mars and Mercury by antipathy, if they happen in any part of the body governed by Jupiter, or under the signs Cancer, Sagitarius or Pisces, and therefore must needs be good for the gout, either used outwardly in oil or ointment, or inwardly in an electuary, or syrup, or concerted juice: for which see the latter end of this book.
It is of a cleansing and cutting faculty, without any manifest heat, moderately drying and binding. It opens and cleanses the liver, helps the jaundice, and is very beneficial to the bowels, healing all inward wounds, bruises, hurts, and other distempers. The decoction of the herb made with wine, and drank, is good against the biting and stinging of serpents, and helps them that make foul, troubled or bloody water.
This herb also helps the cholic, cleanses the breast, and rids away the cough. A draught of the decoction taken warm before the fit, first removes, and in time rids away the tertian or quartan agues. The leaves and seeds taken in wine, stays the bloody flux; outwardly applied, being stamped with old swine’s grease, it helps old sores, cancers, and inveterate ulcers, and draws forth thorns and splinters of wood, nails, or any other such things gotten in the flesh. It helps to strengthen the members that be out of joint: and being bruised and applied, or the juice dropped in it, helps foul and imposthumed ears.
The distilled water of the herb is good to all the said purposes, either inward or outward, but a great deal weaker.
It is a most admirable remedy for such whose livers are annoyed either by heat or cold. The liver is the former of blood, and blood the nourisher of the body, and Agrimony a strengthener of the liver.
I cannot stand to give you a reason in every herb why it cures such diseases; but if you please to pursue my judgment in the herb Wormwood, you shall find them there, and it will be well worth your while to consider it in every herb, you shall find them true throughout the book.
WATER AGRIMONY.
It is called in some countries, Water Hemp, Bastard Hemp, and Bastard Agrimony, Eupatorium, and Hepatorium, because it strengthens the liver.
Descript.] The root continues a long time, having many long slender strings. The stalk grows up about two feet high, sometimes higher. They are of a dark purple colour. The branches are many, growing at distances the one from the other, the one from the one side of the stalk, the other from the opposite point. The leaves are fringed, and much indented at the edges. The flowers grow at the top of the branches, of a brown yellow colour, spotted with black spots, having a substance within the midst of them like that of a Daisy: If you rub them between your fingers, they smell like rosin or cedar when it is burnt. The seeds are long, and easily stick to any woollen thing they touch.
Place.] They delight not in heat, and therefore they are not so frequently found in the Southern parts of England as in the Northern, where they grow frequently: You may look for them in cold grounds, by ponds and ditches’ sides, and also by running waters; sometimes you shall find them grow in the midst of waters.
Time.] They all flower in July or August, and the seed is ripe presently after.
Government and virtues.] It is a plant of Jupiter, as well as the other Agrimony, only this belongs to the celestial sign Cancer. It heals and dries, cuts and cleanses thick and tough humours of the breast, and for this I hold it inferior to but few herbs that grow. It helps the cachexia or evil disposition of the body, the dropsy and yellow-jaundice. It opens obstructions of the liver, mollifies the hardness of the spleen, being applied outwardly. It breaks imposthumes away inwardly: It is an excellent remedy for the third day ague. It provokes urine and the terms; it kills worms, and cleanses the body of sharp humours, which are the cause of itch and scabs; the herb being burnt, the smoke thereof drives away flies, wasps, &c. It strengthens the lungs exceedingly. Country people give it to their cattle when they are troubled with the cough, or broken-winded.
ALEHOOF, OR GROUND-IVY.
Several counties give it different names, so that there is scarcely any herb growing of that bigness that has got so many: It is called Cat’s-foot, Ground-ivy, Gill-go-by-ground, and Gill-creep-by-ground, Turn-hoof, Haymaids, and Alehoof.
Descript.] This well known herb lies, spreads and creeps upon the ground, shoots forth roots, at the corners of tender jointed stalks, set with two round leaves at every joint somewhat hairy, crumpled and unevenly dented about the edges with round dents; at the joints likewise, with the leaves towards the end of the branches, come forth hollow, long flowers, of a blueish purple colour, with small white spots upon the lips that hang down. The root is small with strings.
Place.] It is commonly found under hedges, and on the sides of ditches, under houses, or in shadowed lanes, and other waste grounds, in almost every part of this land.
Time.] They flower somewhat early, and abide a great while; the leaves continue green until Winter, and sometimes abide, except the Winter be very sharp and cold.
Government and virtues.] It is an herb of Venus, and therefore cures the diseases she causes by sympathy, and those of Mars by antipathy; you may usually find it all the year long except the year be extremely frosty; it is quick, sharp, and bitter in taste, and is thereby found to be hot and dry; a singular herb for all inward wounds, exulcerated lungs, or other parts, either by itself, or boiled with other the like herbs; and being drank, in a short time it eases all griping pains, windy and choleric humours in the stomach, spleen or belly; helps the yellow jaundice, by opening the stoppings of the gall and liver, and melancholy, by opening the stoppings of the spleen; expels venom or poison, and also the plague; it provokes urine and women’s courses; the decoction of it in wine drank for some time together, procures ease to them that are troubled with the sciatica, or hip-gout: as also the gout in hands, knees or feet; if you put to the decoction some honey and a little burnt alum, it is excellently good to gargle any sore mouth or throat, and to wash the sores and ulcers in the privy parts of man or woman; it speedily helps green wounds, being bruised and bound thereto. The juice of it boiled with a little honey and verdigrease, doth wonderfully cleanse fistulas, ulcers, and stays the spreading or eating of cancers and ulcers; it helps the itch, scabs, wheals, and other breakings out in any part of the body. The juice of Celandine, Field-daisies, and Ground-ivy clarified, and a little fine sugar dissolved therein, and dropped into the eyes, is a sovereign remedy for all pains, redness, and watering of them; as also for the pin and web, skins and films growing over the sight, it helps beasts as well as men. The juice dropped into the ears, wonderfully helps the noise and singing of them, and helps the hearing which is decayed. It is good to tun up with new drink, for it will clarify it in a night, that it will be the fitter to be drank the next morning; or if any drink be thick with removing, or any other accident, it will do the like in a few hours.
ALEXANDER.
It is called Alisander, Horse-parsley, and Wild-parsley, and the Black Pot-herb; the seed of it is that which is usually sold in apothecaries’ shops for Macedonian Parsley-seed.
Descript.] It is usually sown in all the gardens in Europe, and so well known, that it needs no farther description.
Time.] It flowers in June and July; the seed is ripe in August.
Government and virtues.] It is an herb of Jupiter, and therefore friendly to nature, for it warms a cold stomach, and opens a stoppage of the liver and spleen; it is good to move women’s courses, to expel the afterbirth, to break wind, to provoke urine, and helps the stranguary; and these things the seeds will do likewise. If either of them be boiled in wine, or being bruised and taken in wine, is also effectual against the biting of serpents. And you know what Alexander pottage is good for, that you may no longer eat it out of ignorance but out of knowledge.
THE BLACK ALDER-TREE.
Descript.] This tree seldom grows to any great bigness, but for the most part abideth like a hedge-bush, or a tree spreading its branches, the woods of the body being white, and a dark red colet or heart; the outward bark is of a blackish colour, with many whitish spots therein; but the inner bark next the wood is yellow, which being chewed, will turn the spittle near into a saffron colour. The leaves are somewhat like those of an ordinary Alder-tree, or the Female Cornet, or Dogberry-tree, called in Sussex Dog-wood, but blacker, and not so long. The flowers are white, coming forth with the leaves at the joints, which turn into small round berries, first green, afterwards red, but blackish when they are thorough ripe, divided, as it were, into two parts, wherein is contained two small round and flat seeds. The root runneth not deep into the ground, but spreads rather under the upper crust of the earth.
Place.] This tree or shrub may be found plentifully in St. John’s Wood by Hornsey, and the woods upon Hampstead Heath; as also a wood called the Old Park, in Barcomb, in Essex, near the brook’s sides.
Time.] It flowers in May, and the berries are ripe in September.
Government and virtues.] It is a tree of Venus, and perhaps under the celestial sign Cancer. The inner yellow bark hereof purges downwards both choler and phlegm, and the watery humours of such that have the dropsy, and strengthens the inward parts again by binding. If the bark hereof be boiled with Agrimony, Wormwood, Dodder, Hops, and some Fennel, with Smallage, Endive, and Succory-roots, and a reasonable draught taken every morning for some time together, it is very effectual against the jaundice, dropsy, and the evil disposition of the body, especially if some suitable purging medicines have been taken before, to void the grosser excrements: It purges and strengthens the liver and spleen, cleansing them from such evil humours and hardness as they are afflicted with. It is to be understood that these things are performed by the dried bark; for the fresh green bark taken inwardly provokes strong vomitings, pains in the stomach, and gripings in the belly; yet if the decoction may stand and settle two or three days, until the yellow colour be changed black, it will not work so strongly as before, but will strengthen the stomach, and procure an appetite to meat. The outward bark contrariwise doth bind the body, and is helpful for all lasks and fluxes thereof, but this also must be dried first, whereby it will work the better. The inner bark thereof boiled in vinegar is an approved remedy to kill lice, to cure the itch, and take away scabs, by drying them up in a short time. It is singularly good to wash the teeth, to take away the pains, to fasten those that are loose, to cleanse them, and to keep them sound. The leaves are good fodder for kine, to make them give more milk.
If in the Spring-time you use the herbs before mentioned, and will take but a handful of each of them, and to them add an handful of Elder buds, and having bruised them all, boil them in a gallon of ordinary beer, when it is new; and having boiled them half an hour, add to this three gallons more, and let them work together, and drink a draught of it every morning, half a pint or thereabouts; it is an excellent purge for the Spring, to consume the phlegmatic quality the Winter hath left behind it, and withal to keep your body in health, and consume those evil humours which the heat of Summer will readily stir up. Esteem it as a jewel.
THE COMMON ALDER-TREE.
Descript.] This grows to a reasonable height, and spreads much if it like the place. It is so generally known to country people, that I conceive it needless to tell that which is no news.
Place and Time.] It delights to grow in moist woods, and watery places; flowering in April or May, and yielding ripe seed in September.
Government and virtues.
