crass and frigid humours CHAP. IX Of Polypody POlypody is so tearmed because many knots and tubercles like the Fishes called Polypi grow on its roots It is also called Dentropteris or tree fern because it grows on trees and sometimes on umbrous stones mossy walls and such humid places It is an herb without stalk flower and seed consisting onely of a root and leaves like masculine fern but lesser and maculated on the under side with yellow spots It s root is hirsute and long about the crassitude of a little finger extending it self obliquely and exasperated with many lumps within it is porraceous and virid like a Pastick nut its sapour is very sweet subamare austere and somewhat aromatical but it doth not much affect the tongue It doth not calefy in the third degree as Mesue thought but it 's probable that it exsiccates in the second it deterges digests and ficcates crass and viscid humours educes melancholick and viscid flegm and that even from the articles if it be copiously assumed It sustains much coction and is seldome given alone but mixed with other purgatives which may adauge its imbecil purgative faculty The broth of an old Cock the decoction of Bete or Mallows much augment its purgative faculty It helps also some affections when it is externally applyed Diosc c. 188. l. 4. CHAP. X. Of Carthamus Bastard or Spanish Saffron AS the nomenclature of Cartham denotes this herb to be purgative so doth Enicus shew it spinous For Cartham is a Plant which as to its faculty is subductive and to its cognation of the sorts of Carduus It assurges on a stalk two cubits high and more which is strait hard ligneous and towards the top ramous Its leaves are long broad from the middle to the stalk acuminated towards the top and aculeated in their ambient The extremities of the branches produce some round heads about the magnitude of Olives obduced with many spinous skins which emit Saffron-colour'd flowers so like them of Crocus that most perspicacious eyes may be deceived in them hence the Vulgar call it the wild Crocus To these succeed long smooth white angulous and splendent seeds effigiated like them of Heliotrope whose cortex is hard and medulla or pith white fat and sweet Cartham is by the Seplasiaries called wild Crocus by the Medicks Cnicum whereof there are two sorts the one sative or vulgar the other wild whereof Theophrastus makes two sorts also the one with a strait caul which women use for distaffs which according to Ruellius c. 155. l. 3. is a kinde of thistle and wild Cartham the other lower grosser and more hirsute which they call Carduus Benedictus of which elsewhere Carthamus seed is purgative Vires for its very pith solely assumed is flegmagogous and mixed with other Medicaments expurges lent and frigid humours but that it calefies not in the third degree sense demonstrates contrary to Galen's opinion CHAP. XI Of Wallwort or Dwarf-Elder WAllwort and Elder are so similar Ebulus that they seem to differ solely in magnitude whence Dioscorides calls them both Elders the one the Arboreous Elder the other the Dwarf-Elder Elder grows into a tall tree sometimes whose boughs and bole are hollow medullous and round like reeds first green then cineritious ligneous and hard Sambucus its leaves are like them of a Wallnut tree but graveolent and in their ambient frequently incided Its flowers are many small white and elegantly composed into heads whose consequents are turgent berries of a sanguineous colour The Elder germinates first of wild trees and is last denudated of its leaves But Wall-wort or Dwarf-Elder is more herbaceous and low whose stalk is neither ligneous nor perpetual but annually tabefying and dying It grows best in moyst and fat soyls especially if they be incultivated Its leaves are ample and incided about Its flowers composed into heads are numerous white odorate not fetid Its fruits like Elders are small round black and pregnant with juice and seed Its roots are crass long and carnous out of its fruits in Autumn they get small seeds which they keep in their Pharmacopolies Both its roots and seeds are hydragogous and very apertive and therefore usefull in hydroptical and watry diseases CHAP. XII Of Esula or Devils milk THere are seven sorts of Tithymals enumerated amongst the lacteous Plants whereunto Esulae are congenerate Esula for they are all lacteous and purge flegm with griping and molestation yet Esula is by the Rusticks taken for Rhabarb and so frequently used to the valitude of many and the death of more It is called Esula or Caula by the Arabians Alsebran by Diascorides Peplus by the Shopmen Esula rotunda because its small leaves are orbiculated It grows in vineyards hedge sides and many incultivated places Another Plant which Dioscorides calls Peplion and Peplis and some water Plantain hath much cognation and the same virtues with this Esula The round and lesser Esula is better than the greater which hath leaves like Tithymal Esula is hot Vires sharp and ulcerative violently educing flegm its substance being tenuious is igneous sharp incisive tenuative fusive apertive and siccative Besides flegm it draws also choler from the junctures It s ferity is castigated by infusion in vinegar as we have shewed in Officina c. 8. l. 2. or by admistion of some cordials or roberatives CHAP. XIII Of Hermodactyls HErmodactyls Hermodactylus and Colchian Ephemora are bulbous Plants similar in form in faculties dissimilar for * Quick-fading flower Ephemerum is strangulative in one day suffocating the assumer and no way subducing the belly in purging whereas Hermodactyls are no way perilous and yet expurge orderly flegm from the junctures There is also indigenous Ephemerum which some call wild Leeks or meadow Cracus whose leaves are but three or four long broad smooth The difference between Hermodactyls and Ephemerum and fat ones whose flowers are in colour and form like them of Crocus issuing out at the same time to wit in Autumn It s root is like an Onion it grows in meadows and moyst places it is by some erroneously usurped for Hermodactyle for this being exsiccated is flaccid feeble and not at all purgative nor yet pernicious as the Colchian Ephemerum which is strangulative whereas Hermodactyle is exotical and not flaccid as this but hard compact and easily pulverable which educes humours from the remote parts and junctures of the assumer Now one sort of Ephemerum is lethal and strangulative to wit the Colchian another not strangulative to wit our indigenous one a third purgative and safe to wit the Syrian which in Pharmacopolies is called Hermodactyla Hermodactyle calefies and siccates in the beginning of the second degree Vires yet with such excrementitious flatulent and nauseative humidity that it makes the ventricle aversant to it especially then when the commoved humours with one conflux come upon it It draws flegm and other viscid humours even from the
the top and praegnant with small and copious seed it growes in moist and lacunous places and about high-way-sides The Roseous Plantain is so called because it beares an herbid and patulous umbell compacted of many leafes cohaerent like a rose it is in other things very like the former The lesser Plantain hath more angust smaller softer and more tenuious leafes its caulicle is angulous declined downwards its flowers pallid seeds small which grow upon the summityes of its surcles the Apothecaryes call it Lanceolate and lanceole because its leafes are acuminated lance-wise from its five distinct fibres or nerves which it hath in its sulcated leafes it is sometimes called Quinquenerve and Septinerve when besides its five greater two lesser nerves emike in its leafes some have depraved it of quinq nerve and made it centinerve others call it Arnoglosse because its leafes resemble a Lambs tongue but such as beare rounder and lanuginous leafes are more specially designed with that name Plantain is cold and dry in the second degree it astringes condensates cohibites absterges and thence conduces to the cure of pimples St. Anthonyes fire Vires inflammations and all sanguine eruptions it stayes fluxes cures the dysentery and all belly fluxes exarceats putretude and roborates all parts CHAP. IX Of Knot-grasse or Polygonum CEntinode or Knot-grasse is so called from the frequency of its knotts Seminall or Polygonum from the multitude of its seed it is somtimes called Corrigiola sometimes sanguinary from staying blood and somtimes Proserpinaca or rather Serpinaca from its reptility it is a low reptant hearb with exile copious nodose and geniculated branches leafes like Rue but longer and softer under which much small seed lyes with praevious and rubeously pallid flowers it growes spontaneously in incultivated soyles and pathes it dyes not by calcitration The masculine Polygonum is refrigerative astrictive and spissative and thence it is praevalent against pimples St. Authonyes fire Vires and all inflammations It s succe imbibed by the mouth allayes all red or bloody flouors and excrements and stayes the impense flux of the belly It is also good against the ardour of the stomack and the bitings of venenate animalls The other sort of Polygonum or faeminine centinode assurges on one caule like a slender reed or rather the herb horse-tayle with dense genicles which are orbicularly circumvested with slender leafes like them of itch-Tree it growes in watry places There is also a marine Knot-grasse neither known nor used by medicks some deceived with the affinity of the words take Polygonum for Poligonatum and on the contrary but they are very dissimilar in form for Poligonatum or Solomons Seale is a cubitall Plant with a rigid and crooked caule a crasse nodose root CHAP. X. Of Comfrey THere are three greater Comfryes Species the first is Alam or the vulgar which they call great Comfrey the second the Tuberous the third the Maculous there be also three middle ones the Petraean the Bugulous and Prunella but many small ones as all the Bellides which the vnlgarity calls Margarits whereof there are many varietyes which are rather coronary then Medicinall The greater Comfrey which from the similitude of its leafes is called Asses eare hath a cubitall caule ample long broad crasse and hispid leafes like Buglosse but broader more obscure and mucronated out of the wings of its surcles erupt productions of Leafes wherein white pallid or subrubeous flowers grow which are disposed in an elegant order whereunto black seeds like them of petty Mullein do succeed its root is glutinous black without white within whereof there is frequent use in Pharmacy Comfrey refrigerates Vires contracts astringes and condenses cohibits St. Anthonyes fire cures broken bones stayes the flux of blood eases the dysentery and is so efficacious in consolidating wounds that if it be cocted with flesh it conglutinates its parts together The maculated Comfrey which most call Pulmonary or Lung-wort hath branches leafes and flowers like the praecedent onely its leafes are shorter and maculated with white spots it growes in wooddy opaque and umbrous places and it is thought good against the vices of the Lungs The Petraean Comfrey which is so called because it growes in Petrous and stony places erects it selfe with small and slender branches like Origanum with small Leafes heads like Thyme and a ruddy long and crasse root some think that this Sympythum is Bugle but being lignous and odorated and capitulated like thyme it differs much from Bugle Bugle is a certain middle kind of Sympythum of which the past age knew and praedicated many and admirable things the vulgarity yet perswading themselves that they need neither Medick nor Chirurgeon that have bugle which they thence call Sanikle its leafes are crasse long small mucronated incided about and subrubrous its caules quadrangular and somewhat hirsute its flowers caeruleous and many even from the middle of the surcles upwards some call it Morandola some Laurentina and others the middle Comfrey it is a vulnerary and is much commended to disrupted broken bruised and convelled members Prunella or Brunella which some adde to the Tribe of Comfreys is a low plant with slender quadrangular hirsute and decumbent surcles broad mucronated but short somewhat hispid obscurely virid viscid and fat leaves caeruleously purpureous flowers erupting out of the summities of its surcles in ears like Betony flowers it is good for the same that Bugle pollicitates it deleates the blacknesse of the tongue contracted by Feavers if the mouth be washed with its decoction CHAP. XI Of Sorrell DIoscorides enumerates Sorrell amongst the sorts of Lapathum not because their sapour seems to be similar which is in Lapathum somewhat sweet or rather insipid and in Sorrel acid whence it is called Oxalis but because its leafs are mucronated like them of Lapathum Sorrel is sufficiently known to all and it is of two sorts Species the one wild which is least and most acid growing copiously in sabulous macilent and segetary places which the Hollanders call Acetosa vervecina other Vineta The other is greater which delights in humid places as in Meadowes and many Gardens whereof there are two varieties one alwayes hortensian and reptant very dissimilar to the rest in effigies for its leafs are round and its colour subcineritiously virid its sapour indeed is acid like the rest but more grateful to the palate the other is well known which is understood alwayes when Sorrel is put absolutely this is from its great and sacred effects called sometimes sacred or holy grasse Oxalis brings to my mind the herb Oxytriphilum or sower trifoile which the vulgarity calls Cuckow-bread the Apothecaries Alleluga Fracastorius Lugula it is a low plant growing in the beginning of the Spring in sylvous places with slender and short Caulicles on whose summities three tenuious virid acid and grateful leafs do inside its flowers consisting of white leafs coherent do depend on short pedicles this little
humours in the bowels and ventricle removes obstructions emends the colour helps the palpitation of the heart moves womens fluors ejects the dead birth and given opportunely cures Hydrophoby and the bitings of mad Dogs CHAP. 13. Opiata Neapolitana or The Neapolitan Opiate â„ž of Senny â„¥ j. ss Hermodacts Turbith of eachÊ’ vj. the shaving of the * Pali sancti Holywood Sarsaperilla Sassafras of each â„¥ ss of the best Honey despumed in the decoction of China-root and cocted to the absumption of the aqueous humidity lb j. make it into an Opiate The COMMENTARY There is no Pharmacoean novellist so ignorant but he can boast of some secret Remedy he hath for the virulent flux of sperm or any venereous Ulcer concerning which affections and their cures Empiricks are most busie whereunto the vulgarity of Apothecaries frequently run not without peril for this kinde of people being greedy of novelties and too credulous will amplect any errour though capital so it smell but of Medicine and take from deceivers their most deletery Medicaments It is indeed miserable that such as are unwilling to dye should yet thrust themselves willingly into the hands of the killer I would exhort all worthy Apothecaries to move induce and valiantly infer war upon such nefarious wretches and use onely such remedies as are delivered and approved by most perite and learned Authors We describe this Opiate for the help of such Youngsters as Venery hath caught it is Invented by much Reason described by much Art and proved by much Experience for given when and where it should it successfully cures the Indian Pox which they call the Neapolitan Disease whence it is justly cognominated the Neapolitan Opiate We have often seen another of the same name in the Parisian Chirurgeons hands which being ill described at first was daily changed by every fresh-man for some onely make it of Guaiacum Senny Honey and Aqua-vitae others adde Bayberries some take away Guaiacum and substitute Sarsaperilla some approve of Hermodactyls others Turbith others both and some neither We exhibit it according to the prescript established and proved by Reason and Effect Some adde Aqua-vitae but I think Cinamon-water is more conducible but neither to hot waters either to cold ones It cures the Venereous Disease it is given every other day and oftentimes every morning fasting from Ê’ ij to â„¥ ss It is most convenient for such as for business cannot lye long and stay much in their Cubicles We have omitted many other Antidotes described by Mesue Actuarius Myrepsus and Praepositus whose composition is not probable nor use laudable before which we prefer these we have transcribed For Zazenea Atanasia both the Requies of Nicholaus Diasulphur Acaristum Adrianum and the confection of Storax are seldome or never prepared because Asyncritum both in facility in preparation and faculty in operation is much before them all For their chief vertue consisting in conciliating sleep it is enough that we have one or two Medicaments as Pills of Dogs-tongue and the Roman Philonium that can with felicity effect this end And we judge the same of Alfessera of Esdra and of the Hamagogous Antidote and other almost innumerable Confections collected by Authors or rather Transcriptors which would make a man nauseate their number SECT III. Of Alterative and Roborative Trochisks VVE have hitherto exhibited Roboratives in form of Powders soft Electuaries and Opiates It now rests before we put an end to this Book that we explicate all Trochisks of consimilar vertues and all necessary for Pharmacopolies as well those which are compounded that they may ingrede the confection of other Medicaments as those that are given alone and serve to the benefit of no others And lest we should have confusedly congested Roborative and Purgative Trochisks together as many do and that perperously we have adjoyned all the Cathartical as Trochisks of Rhabarb of Agarick and of Alhandal to the end of the third Section of our second Book And now acceding to the explication of Roborative and Alterative Trochisks we shall begin with those that constitute parts of Mithridate and Treacle CHAP. 1. Trochisci de Vipera or Trochisks of Vipers â„ž of the flesh of Vipers boyled in water with Dill and Salt lb ss the Medulla of the whitest Bread dryed and powdered â„¥ ij beat them well together and with hands anointed with Opobalsamum or its succidency make little Troches every one to weighÊ’ j. dry them to keep The COMMENTARY These are called Viperine or Theriacal Pastils for whose confection the Vipers must be taken about the end of the Spring or beginning of Summer when they have been recreated with their wonted meat and air The Female should be rather selected then the Male but not while pregnant but agile with a long neck a fiery aspect rutilous and red eyes a broad compressed head a snout reflected upwards an ample belly a tayl not involved growing more gracile by little and little void of flesh a firm but slow pace The Males tayl grows sensibly more gracile and is not destitute of flesh the trunk of its body is smaller its neck thicker its head more angust with onely two canine teeth the Female hath four Such as inhabit salt and maritimous places are not selegible those that are taken new are better then the old But that they may be rightly prepared they should be killed with Rods for their anger being thereby incensed they will spit out their poyson Their head and tayl must be abscinded from them when beaten each of them to the measure of four fingers which is enough in greater Vipers those which after this amputation move no longer nor effuse any more blood but lye still and are exanguous must be rejected as useless The useful must be excoriated eviscerated and purged from all their fatness washed well three or four times in clear water and then cocted in a fit pot with sufficient of water with a little Salt and more or less of green Dill as the number of the Vipers is in the prudent Apothecaries judgement as one handful and a half or two for four or five Vipers which number will make up three ounces of Trochisks requisite for the confection of the Theriack They must be cocted on a luculent but not a violent fire without smoke that their flesh may be easily detracted from their spina then the separated flesh must be brayed in a stone-Morter with a wooden-Pestel exactly whereunto in pulveration a third or fourth part of dry pulverated white-bread must be adjected that six dragms or one ounce of bread may respond to four ounces of flesh He that addes more bread makes the Pastils more imbecile and he that addes less more efficacious The flesh and bread thus mixed by triture and subacted into Paste must be made into Pastils or Orbicles They act perperously who inject any of the broath wherein this flesh was decocted into the triture for so it becomes too humid the Trochisks thereof too rancid
articles and therefore conduces much to the Chiragry Podagry and other dolours in the junctures proceeding from pituitous humours CHAP. XIV Of Turbith THE enarration of no Plant is so much controverted as that of Turbith Mesue calls it a Lactary and a ferulaceous Herb Serapio thinks it is the root of Tripoly Acluarius one while sayes it is the root of Pityussa another while Dioscorides his Alypum and the more because it is whitish Some think it 's the root of Tapsia others of Scammony but Garcias will have it a Plant different from all these For saith he it is a plant whose root is neither great nor long whose caul of about a fingers crassitude and two palms longitude is extended along the earth like Ivy. Its leaves are like them of Althea as also its flowers which are whitish or red not changing their colour thrice in a day like Tripoly as fome have foolishly credited Now all Turbith is not gummous but onely that part of the caul that is next the root which part is also most usefull the rest being too gracile and comous to be used It purges onely flegm not choler as Alypum doth which some call Herba terribilis for its flowers leaves and seeds move terrible purgations Perhaps this Herb is called Turbith from the like faculty as Turbith because turbative which the Arabians call Terbeth which name they also give to their more valid flegmagogous Simples Turbith then according to Garcias is neither the root of Alypum nor of Tripoly nor of Scammony nor of Tapsia nor yet any lacteous or ferulaceous Plant neither is the gummous or domestick the best according to Mesue however there is no Shop wherein good Turbith may not be found noted with those ensigns which Mesue gives it Whereunto also that same that Garcias depinges in other lineaments which the Arabians call Caritamion responds in faculties But which is the true Turbith is yet ancipitous That is most approved of which is some what white and cineritious easily frangible and fresh for the inveterate is imbecil and conturbates the bowels It is hot in the third degree purges by moderate traction Vires and if it be corrected educes crass viscid and putrid flegm from the ventricle breast remote parts and junctures CHAP. XV. Of Scammony BY Scammony we understand not onely the concrete juice of a certain Plant but also the Plant it self And it is a lacteous volvulous scansory and smooth Plant in leaf flower and form very like Similax in root somewhat different which in Similax is slender in Scammony crass long candid within graveolent and pregnant with juice out of which slender and viticulous branches issue which climbe up the adjoyning bushes amplexing and implicating them Its leaves are broad and acuminated like Arisaron but lesser its flowers are albid and cave like a scale it grows plenteously in fat soyl chiefly in Antioch and Syria The liquor commonly called Scammony is collected out of its roots after several manners as first the head of the root is resected then excavated with a knife that the juice may run in the concamerated passage till it be brought to fit receptacles or vessels supposited Secondly the earth about the root is effoded and the root left in a concamerated hole whereunto the juice is profunded upon Wallnut tree leaves therein subjected which after concretion is extracted Thirdly the root evelled is incided and the juice issuing from it is exsicced formed into lumps and preserved Fourthly juice is extracted from its leaves and caul by triture which exsiccated coacted and kept But Scammony so educed is either black or of a sal green which is the worst that is best which exudes out of the root by incision especially that which comes from Antioch that which comes out of Armenia is next out of Europe bad enough The best is nitid splendid clear like gum somewhat white rate fungous spongious easily liquescible tender friable not ponderous nor very graveolent nor yet suaveolent but like taurine glew And by how much any recedes more from these notes by so much it is worse All Scammony purges validly Vires moving the belly with labour and molestation it expurges flegm and watry thin and sharp humours and if it be too largely assumed it abrades the intestines hurts the bowels opens and crodes the orifices of the veins draws blood downwards excites the dysentery conturbates the heart liver and other intrals and subverts the ventricle it is hot and dry in the third degree It s efferous faculty may be castigated by the admistion of Aloes The correction of Scammony but better if it be decocted in a Quince excavated and roasted upon coals or in an oven with some seeds of Smallage Fennel and Dancus but the most usual correction is by the admistion of the juice of Quince or Roses Scammony thus castigated Cur Diacrydium cictum is by the Pharmacopolists called Diacrydium which they corruptly term Diagredium When it is too new it is efferous when antiquated imbecil and torminous for it moves but emoves not good diet CHAP. XVI Of Hellebor or Bears-foot ELlebore or Hellebore is either white or black There be two sorts of white the greater and the lesser the greater bears leaves like Plantain or rather Gentian but larger more veinous skrewed and complicated It s caul is strait and long emitting many branches out of which white flowers emerge It s root is cepous crass and white whereunto many fibres adhere It calefies and siccates in the third degree it educes many but chiefly pituitous humours but not without molestation it excites vomit in the Assumer and its powder adhibited at the nostrils moves sternutation Elleborine is very like that same the Pharmacopolists keep Black Hellebore is quadruple the first sort is the true Hellebore Species nigri the second Garden Pseudo-ellebore the third Dioscorides his Hellebore or Bears foot the fourth is wild Pseudo-ellebore Some adde black ferulaceous Hellebore and the great Elleboraster The true black Hellebore emits broad full smooth hard leaves Elleborus niger verus like Laurel whose ambient is incided its flowers are broad patulous first albid then purpureous in whose middle when they are ready to decide grow short husks pregnant with small seeds It s root is manifold disterminated into many black fibres and radicles It flourishes in the winter solstice and deep snows This sort of Hellebore is most usual among Medicks and should be usurped when Hellebore is put absolutely and simply which the Latines call Veratrum the Arabians Cherabachen It purges Melancholy and profits such as are mad frantick Vires hypochondriacal splenical epileptical elephantical and infested with a quartane feaver conducing much to all diseases proceeding from choler and melancholy but it is perilous to the sane imbecil and young CHAP. XVII Of Coloquintida THis Plant is a certain sylvestrian Cucurbite by the Greeks and Latines called Colocynthis by the Arabians Landbel
and extinguishes the venereous poyson The Indians use its juice to cure the venereous disease which to them is natural and endemial CHAP. XXVI Of Chyna root I May not omit this other Antidote against the Indian disease to wit that excellent Root which as also the whole Plant hath its name from Chyna but in its native foyl retains its Countryes name to wit Lompatau It grows in the vast region of Chyna which terminates upon the East-Indies and Scythia not in mountainous and dry ground as some have conjectured but in fens and moyst places like a reed as about the sea-shore or head of some fountain It s root is crass and nodous as red 〈◊〉 hard also and tuberous like the Brambles root and rubeous and tortuous like Bistorts root Slender and imbecil cauls crupt out of its root which are circumcinged with very rare leaves which though low require fulciments that they may be strait This root is now vulgar which the Antients either knew not or oscitantly pretermitted but now it is so notorions that no Barber or young Apprentice but he will talk thereof The Indians use this Medicament as panpharmacal to all diseases and especially to such as cannot be cured by other remedies It is very prevalent in curing the Indian Pox Vires it helps the Vertigo cures the pain of the stomack helps the hydroptical cures the colical colour and affections of the uterus removes obstructions opens the passages moves urine causes sudour helps in convulsions and palsey and eases the dolour of the articles for Charles the fifth Emperour of that name found no ease from other Medicaments but much from Chyna against the Gout which handled him very ill Some say that it is good for such as are tabid but I think too hot to cure the consumption to emend a dry distemper and resarciate it Garcias used it against the heat of the liver so long that his body was almost wholly inflamed It s use is now more rare than formerly it hath been SECTION IV. Of Indigenous Calefactives The Preface WE have many hot Plants which will not grow in forreign Countryes of which we intend to speak distinctly in this fourth Section And they are such as either grow spontaneously in the Fields or by culture in Gardens Wherein we shall observe this method first touch upon those that are hottest then such as are hotter and lastly those that are moderately hot all which we shall run over with brevity yet not so but that their qualities may be distinctly known And therefore we shall begin with such as have a fiery kinde of quality as CHAP. I. Of Bartram or Pellitory BArtram or Pyrethrum is so called from that igneous quality which its chewed root leaves in the gustative organ the Vulgar call it Alexander's foot the Latines from the abundance of spittle it causes in the mouth call it Herba salinaris It is an herb of a cubits height or more in its caul and leaves emulating the wild Daucus or vulgar Carret are multifariously divided and sected into small capillaments like Fennel its flower that erupts out of the summities of its surcles is fair broad and patulous like a Marigold but larger subluteous in its orb and circumdated with little angust long leaves supernally whitish and on the contrary fide of a purple colour in the middle of its orb and between the leaves issues a small long and odorate seed It s root is crass long and of a blackish red colour It grows in many places of Italy and Spain and fruticates flourishes and perfects its seed when it is sown in Gardens in Holland but it grows more copiously and floridly in hot and Eastern Regions and we enumerate it amongst our indigenous Plants because we have it in Europe and the Western Countryes-pretty plentifull There is another Plant which by its acrimonious odour moves sternutation which Apothecaries call wild Pyrethrum because by its vellicative sapour it moves the gust like Bartram and promotes spittle which grows in mountainous and incultivated places also in meadows and hedges Pyrethrum's root is hot in the fourth degree detained in the mouth it projects flegm copiously and therefore it helps the tooth-ache proceeding from a frigid cause it helps also the diuturnal head-ache the Apoplexy Epilepsy Palsey and all affections arising from flegm congested in the head CHAP. II. Of Mustard MUstard is no Aliment sometimes a Medicament often a Condiment for it is most conveniently admixed to viscid and glutinous dishes especially in winter that their viscidity may be corrected and the ventricle thereby roborated for it admirably helps such as have dull palats and nauseate their meat But because by its acrimony it importunely affects the gust it is not onely grinded with vinegar to mitigate its fervour but mixed with sweet wine to obdulcorate its acrimony and so is made a gratefull Condiment which many for its vulgarity disestimate Mustard is either sative or spontaneous the sative is of two sorts the one hath leaves like Rape but lesser and more sharp with a round hispid sharp stalk of two cubits height or more brachiated with many boughs about which erupt luteous flowers orderly disposed to which long thin and sharp husks succeed wherein a little round seed is included of a yellow colour and mordaceous gust The other sative Mustard is so like the former that they seem onely to dissent in colour of their seeds which in the former is luteous in this a blackish red the leaves of this are somewhat more like Rocket than the other in all other things they are the same The wild grows spontaneously in any dry place and sometimes in humid places brinks and hedges it is less than the former bearing lesser leaves jagged almost like Shepherds-purse but more acute it emits luteous quadrifolious flowers it afterwards puts forth its seed in husks which it varies sometimes bearing white sometimes red seed This Plant denominates a noble Medicament they call Synapismum which is celebrated to many uses as to inveterate Head-achs Epilepsy Vertigo difficulty of breathing distillations and the Gout Mustard is hot and dry in the fourth degree it incides attenuates Vires extracts detained in the mouth it moves flegm brayed and snuffed up the nose it causes sternutation it excites women suffocated with the histerical passion but such as have imbecil and caliginous eyes should altogether eschew it CHAP. III. Of Thlaspi or Treacle-Mustard MUstard and Thlaspi are rightly described in the same series for both agree if not in effigies yet much in qualities so that Thlaspi is commonly called Countrey Species or Treacle-Mustard There are many kinds of Thlaspis whereof three are most noted one greater another lesser and another mean whereunto all the rest of that name are referred The first grows plentifully both in cultivated and incultivated Fields with large long crisped leaves acute towards the end its caul is about half a foot long emitting boughs circumcinged with flowers at
boy infested with the Epilepsy CHAP. XXII Of Bulbus or the Sea Bulb BUlbus is either Coronative medicative or esculent among the Coronative are enumerated the innumerable varieties of Daffadills Lilionarcisses Tulips and Hyacinths among the medicative Scilla Hermodactylls Pancratium and the vomitory Bulbus and among the esculent which are also desumed to many eximious medicinall uses Leeke the Onyons of Ascalon and such as by a certain antinomasy are called regall Onions as praecelling the rest which excite venery and which come in frequent use among the ancients for meat instead whereof we use common Onions which are the true bulbus and pollicitate the same effects being also alike described with the ancients Bulbi so that when Bulbus seed is praescribed Onion or Scallyons seed may be usurped Bulbus is a certain root corticous short round and tunicated with many membranes the most external whereof is greatest it often growes out of the earth producing some slender radicles like capillaments which keeping in the earth attract convenient succe for the nutriment of the whole Bulbus Its fronts are like them of Onyons round angust inane and mucronated its caulicles of nine inches heighth in whose summity little purpureous flowers emicate to which succeeds seed black without white within All sorts of Bulbus are acrimonious Vires they excalefie excite venery suppeditate Aliment cause inflation and stiffnesse of the yard but two large plenty of them should not be used in meats because they trouble the nerves Of all the Bulbuses I think Satyrium most excites venery the rest are more ignave causing it by their flatuosity CHAP. XXIII Of Satyrion or the True Dogs-stones SOme plants from the effigies of their roots are called Testicls from their effect Satyria because they make men Satyrs-like prone to venery amongst Bulbous roots such as have but one bulb are properly called Satyria that which hath two Cynosorchis that which hath three Triorchis Of every of which there are many differences some desumed from the form of their bulbes How to know the Best others from the number of their leafs others from the colour of their flowers and their positure yet are all alike in facultres and friends to Venus but that is most approved whose root is singular round about the magnitude of an Apple yellow without white within turgid with carnosity sweet to the gust and grateful to the mouth Three leafs emerge out of this root which are depressed towards the ground in figure and colour like Lillies leafs but lesser from which three it is called Trifoile its caul is of a foot heighth its flowers small and white the roots of this praecels the rest for conditure and this I think is the true Satyrium Condited Satyria are analeptical and restaurative they are good for such as are tabid and such as frequently exercise venery for the root of Satyrium is thought so potent in exciting venery that by retension in ones hand it will stimulate them to congresse whence the Greeks design all plants by the nomenclature of Satyrion which excite venery CHAP. XXIV Of Leeks LEeks are sowen in gardens for culinary uses for the plant is rather esculent then medicinal as Cooks well know yet its succe is sometimes usurped in medicinal remedies as in coacting the powders of foetid pills and sometimes in extinguishing or rather educing of Empyreums for though it be calid yet it hath an excellent faculty in attracting and expelling the impressed vestigium of colour Leck is either sative or spontaneous and both are twofold Species the first sort of the sative is called the headed Leek the second the sective Leek the first because it consists of a round root like an Onyon the later because its root is longer and oftner sected one sort of the spontaneous is called Schoen oprasum which bears tenuious leafs like a bulrush the other is called Ampeloprasum which growes spontaneously in vineyards and other places Dioscorides makes mention of one to wit the headed Leek whose head or rather root that it might greatly increase and dilate it self the ancients covered it with a tile or slate and so they obtained their end many other wayes are invented whereby Leeks may acquire a prodigious magnitude but these we leave to Gardners All Leeks calefie extreamly ezsiccate extenuate open incide Vires resolve and help against the bitings of Serpents and Ustions It s seed brayed and drunk in passum or white Wine helps against the difficulty of urine and diduces its passages some write that Leek eaten excites venery and discusses ebriety but its frequent use causes tumultuous sleeps hurts the sight and begets aeruginous bile CHAP. XXV Of Radish root and Rape or wild Navew THere is much affinity betwixt radish root rape root and wild Turnep Radish root is so notorious that it needs not much explication for the vulgar are so delighted therewith that they sustain themselves with this root bread and salt nay all Nations make meat thereof Rephani Species There are three sorts hereof one is the greater which is an enemy to Vines another lesser the third is black radish which some call wild radish the Gardeners Reforum Rape root Rapium unde dicitur Bunias is from its tumescent figure called Bunias from its round figure Gonzylon or rather Strongylon vulgarly Nape its root is very crasse carnous tuberous white and not capillated its leafes long sharp green deeply incided on both sides its Caule bicubitall and ramous its flowers luteous to which Cods succeed praegnant with seeds like Colewort feeds but greater which ingrede the confection of Mithridate whose faculty is eximious in expugning venenate diseases Some suspect that Bunias differs from Nape and that the seed of Bunias and not of Nape ingredes the composition of Mithridate but each may be substituted in defect of the other There are three differences of Napes or Rapes desumed from their Roots the first is orbiculated turbinated and short the second crasse and long the third lesse and vulgar which the vulgarity call Nape Napes or Turneps as they acquire their magnitude so also their bonity from the condition of the Heavens and of the soyl those that grow in the fields about * A Town in France Caen are so sweet and grateful that they are justly preferred before the rest Rapistrum is a certain wild rape root not at all bulbous Rapistrum which germinates in every field with broad green leafs and luteous flowers whose seed the women call Navet There is another sort thereof with leafs like Bank-cresses which is called Lapsana as also a third kind with leafes like rocket and white flowers all of them bear small black round seeds included in Cods Radish roots are eaten raw turneps not without coction all calefie open and move urine CHAP. XXVI Of Anemone or Wind-flower WE have above treated onely of such Calefactives whose Roots were most celebrated save that at the beginning of this Section we described
herb recreates the heart exarceates putretude and refrigerates its water distilled helps in continual and pestilent Feavers CHAP. XII Of Oxylapathum or Sowerdock LEst confusion should bring obscurity upon the dignotion of these Simples I shall constitute the difference betwixt Lapathum and Hippolapathum Hydrolapathum Oxylapathum and sanguineous Lapathum Lapathum simply so called is a pot-herb expetible for culinary matters which the Cooks call Patience the Herbalists Parella Hippolapathum is either latifolious or rotundifolious both cultivated and called Monks Rhabarb and sometimes Pseudo-Rhabarbe Hydrolapathum is twofold great and small both like the precedent which grow onely in fenny and watry places Oxylapathum growes copiously in incultivated places with a long and crasse root flave within and croceous without a bicubitall and brachiated surcle green and broad seed depending on very minute pedicles and involved in thin membranes of a yellow colour Some call Sanguineous or maculated Lapathum very inconsiderately Dragons blood as we shall shew in its place Sorrel is a kind of Lapathum as also that hearb which some upon what grounds I know not call slow Henry which I think is a spinaceous wild Pot-hearb CHAP. XIII Of Hepatica Hepatorium and Eupatorium or Agrimony PErite Herbalists doe thus distinguish of Hepatica Hepatorium and Eupatorium Hepatica is liver-wort Hepatorium is the vulgar Eupatorium and the true Eupatorium is Agrimony these three being accommodated to the roboration and cure of the Liver are frequently and rightly called Eupatoryes Hepatica is often called Lichen either because it is the best remedy against Ring Wormes Liver-wort or else because it lickes stones its leafe is succulent and crasse adhaering to a moist and umbrous Rock under which little caulicles in forme of pedicles emitt stellated heads it is abstersive refrigerative Hepatorium doth from its root which is of a moderate magnitude exert bicubitall and ramous surcles Hempe-like Agrimony circumvested with long Canhabine leafes serrated about with small muscous and ruddy flowers which having coronated its fair umbell wither and turne into pappe or down Eupatorium or Agrimony is a fruticous plant very like Wild-tansey but that its leaves are more virid divided into more parts and more serrated and hirsute its caule is slender streight cubitall and pilous out of severall parts whereof small luteous flowers emerge whereunto small seeds sharpe on one side whereby they adheaere to wollen cloaths do succeed Agrimony was called Eupatorium from Eupator its inventer it attenuates expurges and peculiarly helpes the Liver and other bowells Mesue which I would not omitt usurpes another hearb which is cubitall and very amare with leafes like the lesser Centory sharpe and serrated about for Eupatorium we call that Hearb the Hearb Julia the Greeks call it Ageratum CHAP. XIIII Of Primerose THe various denominations of this vulgar hearb have obscured its dignotion for I find it called Primiveria Primerose St. Peters hearb the Paraliticall and Arthriticall hearb Phlomis Brachula Caculi Tusculane violer white Betony and petty Mullein but let the inane investigation of the nomenclature be omitted seeing the thing it self is perspicuous It is called primula veris or Primerose because it flourishs and germinates as soon as the very spring approaches there are three generall differences thereof the hortensian pratensian and nemorall the hortensian or garden Primerose is either simple or multiflorous both their flowers are either green or luteously pallid they that grow in Meadowes and Woods are alike as to leafes dissimilar in flowers for the pratensian flowers are croceous small and almost inodorate the nemoralls pallid more patulous and odorate Primerose is multifolious whose leafes are rugose like Betony but longer broader and more pallid out of whose centre arise long and slender pillars in whose summities three foure or five subluteous and pensile flowers whose extremities are denticulated do dehisce somtimes one only flower growes upon an exile pedicle I have noted six varietyes differenced by the colour of their flowers for some are herbaceous green and elegant others white and vetust some red others aureous and others subflave besides some are onely coronated with a simple flower Paralysis others are so prolifically multiflorous that one flower seems to grow out of another that which produces a simple and luteous flower growes copiously and spontaneously in many places in the lower Neustria especially in the Vallonian field where many rare Plants make their provent It helpes much in paralyticall and arthriticall dolours Vires The decoction of its root will expediate from the infarctures of the Reines protrude Sand and expell the stones of the bladder CHAP. XV. Of Cabbage or Garden Colewort CAbbage which the Greeks call Crambe is so vulgar that it were supervacaneous with much labour to prosecute its designation seeing it is sowen planted and cultivated in every Nation and place for esure yet all its kinds do not flourish in every Region but some require this others that soyle whence some are called Sabaudae because they delight most in that Tract which are patulous not occluse green without and white within others marine because they grow spontaneously in maritimous soyles others Cauliflowers and Italian Cabbages which grow onely in Italy or spring from Italian seed others vulgar which fruticate plenteously in all places others Caulorape which are turbinated from the middle of the caule upwards and Bulbous Furthermore many varieties may be desumed from the conglomeration incisure plainenesse laevity asperity whitenesse viridity rubeding and obscurity of their leafes as also from their crisped racemous laciniated or sessile heads which are rather for looks then Apothecaryes except the Sea Cabbage which is altogether medicamentall Cabbage generates crasse and melancholicall succe Vires and is thought to inebriate the head whence the Germanes do so much desire it the red one is pectorall and praeferred before the rest in confecting ecclegmes CHAP. XVI Of Flebane PSyllium is a pulicary hearb so called from the effigies of its seed it growes in fallow ground and ditches with long angust and hirsute leafes like Crowfoot its Corne begins at the middle of its caule with spicated heads cohaereing like scales at the foot of the leafes out of which small pallid and lanuginous flowers erupt whereunto small black and splendent seeds succeed which clemently mollify and subduce the belly It is refrigerative in the second degree Vires and symmetricall as to humectation and siccation according to Galen Dioscorides and Pliny also affirme that it is thus refrigerative so that I cannot but admire that Mesue should say that it is indued with a sharpe ulcerative and poysonous quality but I beleive he praecipitantly wrote this from the relation of some other man or else excerped it out of some lying book or rather that some changed what he wrote most truely its quality and use is more safe then Mesue his writeings do patifie CHAP. XVII Of Tussilage or Colts-foot THe Romans call this Plant Tussilago the Greeks
Bechion from that speedy help and utility it affords the Coughers and anhelant Apothecaryes call it Colts-foot because its leafes do a little resemble a horses hoofe the inferiour part whereof is tomentous and white the superiour green It s caule is so short scarce aequalling a palme in length that some thought it grew without a caule its flower is luteous rudiated and aureous like Sow thistles flowers which erupts in February or March before the egression of its leafes which standing a few dayes dehisces into dawn its root is slender white and geniculated delighting in moist places and River brinkes Vires It s faculty hath respect unto cough and anhelations it is also credited that its fume in a Tobacco-Pipe will break an imposthume in the breast CHAP. XVIII Of Hops THere is a scansory Plant which creepes up to the summityes of Trees which we call Hop-Tree It growes spontaneously in Hedges and Meadow sides with sharpe leafes like Cucumber or triangular like Briony wherewith it encompasses shrubs its flowers are subalbid herbaceous compacted of many folicles scale-wise disposed and racemously pendent wherein a small seed is contained the Belgians much estimate this fruit for with this and their fruits they make up their drink as we do our Beer its tender branches in the beginning of the spring cocted may be eaten with butter or oyle and vinegar like Sperage or sallets It refrigerates moderately moves Choller Vires diduces the passages removes obstructions moves urine cures the Jaundice exacts Phlegme and hydropicall humours and allayes the heat of the Stomack CHAP. XIX Of Bistort BIstort is so denominated from its intorted and convolved radicles some take it for Dragon-wort others for wild Bete some say but without ground or reason that it is the Arabian Bean others more tolerably call it Britannica of whose family we constitute it for it differs from it onely in the colour of its root for they are both very like in forme and faculties Britannica doth with a peculiar faculty respect stomacate and sceletyrbe which maladyes much molest the Germanes and Septentrionall incolists the like whereof hapned upon Caesars Souldiers when they came beyond Rhene who there finding a River drunk of the water which within two dayes caused their teeth to fall out and resolved the joynts of their knees but the herb Britannica well help such as are thus infested Bistort doth from its nodose intorted rubescent root emit long broad acuminated and venous leafes green above and somwhat white beneath round cubitall or shorter caules circumvested with little leafes from the middle upwards and adorned with purpueous flowers its seed is small and triangular like that of Sorrell It s root is most used in Pharmacy Vires which is inodorate refrigerative and astrictive it roborates the internalls exarceates putretude resists poyson and cures pestilent diseases CHAP. XX. Of the Strawberry-Bush FRagaria is perpetually green never devoid of leafes it depends upon no Caule onely its radicles emit slender and lanuginous pedicles some whereof bear onely leafes others flowers and fine leafes others like fibres creep along the ground and germinate for where ever they touch ground there they radicate and ministrate a new Plant there are three oblong broad serrated leafes like them of Cinquefoile on each pedicle an herbaceous lump erupts after the occasion of the flowers which augments by little and little and becomes white when it attaines maturity it is red like a Mulberry it is candid soft medullous vinose humid gratefull and sweet to the gust referted with minute grains which we call Strawberries It s root is fibrous capillated and blackish neither it nor the leafes of this Plant are much celebrated for Medicinall uses though it accede the confection of the Martian unguent for the commendable quality of this whole Plant is in its fruit as of Rose-trees in their flowers Mulabathrum in its leafe and Ginger in its root it growes spontaneously in Woods and umbrous places but flourishes more in Gardens and beares greater and sweeter berryes Strawberryes refrigerate Vires quench thirst and nourish the body for a while their water destilled deleates the spots of the face expurges it and makes it fairer CHAP. XXI Of Cinquefoile THis herb is so denominated from the number of its leafes it emitts from one root many pedall festucaceous surcles with luteous and fugaceous flowers on their summityes like them of wild Tansey each pedicle beares five oblong flowers crenated about like a Saw the whole Plant is somwhat hirsute and whitish its root long blackish without and ruddy within it growes spontaneously about the margins of fields There is another sort of Cinquefoile with great crenated leafes green above and white and lanuginous below there is a third also which is reptile whose branches are slender and imbecill leafes smooth and green flowers luteous and roots fibrous and exile another sort growes in stagnant places in leafes and magnitude very like the first with double darkly red flowers which grow upon an head referted with many seeds Cinquefoile whose root is most in use allayes the inflammation of the jawes and asper artery Vires it stayes the belly flux and dysentery in drink it cures the dolours of the hips and junctures cures biles and scabs discusses cowles on the neck cohibites pimples represses watry swellings the succe of its root while young and tender is good against the affections of the Liver and Lungs CHAP. XXII Of Goosse-grasse or Cleavers GOosegrasse hath either soft surcles and leafes and is called Mellugo or sharpe ones and is called Asperugo or Spargula and Asperula for the whole Plant adhaeres to the Cloaths of such as passe by through its tenacious asperity whence the Greeks call it Philanthropon and Philadelphon Pliny Lappago Goosegrasse is a Plant growing besides hedges ditches and amongst thornes adhaereing to vicine shrubs with imbecill obsequious quadrangular surcles of many cubits length with angust leafes decussated like Starres and orbicularly cohaereing to the genicles of its surcles as in Ruby to which it is very like its flower is small and white its seed hard white round concave in forme of a navil whence some call it Omphalocarpon Goosegrasse is moderately extersive and desiccative the succe of the whole Plant drunk in Wine auxiliates against the biteings of Spiders and Vipers the Plant infused therein cures the eares aches Vires its leafes brayed and collected in Wine-Lees discusse swellings in the neck Gallion is very like Spargula or Mollugo which is often put into milke to co-agulate it CHAP. XXIII Of Scabiose SInce this Plant is neither that which Dioscorides calls Scrobe nor that which Aëtius calls Psora we cannot learn from the ancients what it is however it is a Plant which is now for its frequency and excellent effects very well known it beares long broad hirsute and laciniated leafes incided like Rocket its root is simple and long it s Caule halfe a foot
a very small tongue four short and crass teeth on each jaw wherewith he breaks and mollifies his aliment and two very long and very crass ones which are liker horns these fall out at set times and grow again And the matter of these is Ivory which is accommodated to infinite uses especially Medicinal And this is that which many Apothecaries burn and erroneously conceit to be the Arabian factitious Spodium And yet it cannot be rightly substituted for Spodium neither when burnt nor crude for by ustion its vertue perishes and when it is crude it is no wayes analogal to Spodium for in proper locution there is onely one kinde of Spodium viz. the Graecian Spodium which they call Pompholix But the Arabian's falsly supposed Spodium is Tabaxir which agrees as much with burnt Ivory as Sugar with Rhabarbe of which we have more largely disserted elsewhere Crude Ivory hath many eximious faculties for Vires it roborates all bowels refrigerates and astringes moderately aligates the dolours of the stomack cohibits vomiting kills worms liberates from diuturnal obstructions and drunk makes women more apt to conceive CHAP. 21. Of the Unicorns-horn IF any Animals naturally void of horns be by chance seen cornuted we think them monstrous as the rustick Caenomanus on whose front grew a crass horn of two palmes length incurvated towards the hinder part of his head which we saw for a miracle in Paris in the year 1600. I never heard of the like save of one man that Philippus Ingrassias makes mention of who had a horn on his back Yet there are many cornigerous Animals especially of the Male-kinde bicornuted as the Ox and Goat others tricornuted as some Indian Oxen and some quadricornuted as I have seen some Rams Some also bear but one horn as the Indian Asse some Kine in Zeila of Aethiopia the amphibious Animal Camphur frequent in the Isles of Molucca also some Aethiopian Birds and some Fishes as the Uletif frequent in the Indian Sea But that Animal celebrated not onely in humane but divine Scriptures which the Hebrews call Rem and Reem Avicenna Achercheden the Arabian Barkaran the Greeks Monoceros the Latins Unicornis the Indians Cartazontes the French Licornia and we Unicorne excels all these in dignity Divers Authors have written variously of this Animal some making it tall others low some wild and sylvestrian others not onely cicurated by art but tamed by the sight of a Girle sometimes lying to sleep beside her as being delighted with her love and odour some make its horn black others yellow and others white Yet they who have lustrated the New-found world say that an Unicorn is lower and slenderer then an Elephant equalizing in magnitude an ordinary Horse of a musteline or yellowish colour and some say subcineritous with a Harts head no long neck a short Mane rare and hanging on one side a rough beard but short bifideous hoofes not thick legs and a tail like a Boar. Solin Plin. Aelian It bears its horn which is straight crass intorted four or five foot long according to its age solid hard squamous yet not clefted yellowish without eburneous within but not undulated with any lines and obvallated with a kinde of crass skin dirempted in circular line from other parts which Merchants ineptly call its Lard Seeing then that an Unicorn is an Animal both rare and wilde not cicurable unless it be caught while very young and its horns do not fall off annually as Harts-horns do it is no wonder if its horn be so rare and precious yet there is one exceeding a mans procerity kept as a rich treasure in St. Dionysius his Temple beside Paris and many little pieces in every Parisian Pharmacopoly that such may be helped as require its exhibition It is much commended against poyson Vires and to exhilarate and roborate the Noble parts and therefore it is given to the pestilent and such as are infected with contagious and venenate diseases yet all patients being not equally rich it is onely exhibited to the richer to others I prescribe Rhinoceros and Harts-horn with no less success CHAP. 22. Of the Bezaar-stone THe Bezaar-stone is either so called from an oriential Animal out of which it is had which the Persians call Pasan and sometimes Bazar and the Indians Bezar or else from is Bezardical that is alexiterial faculty wherein it is eximious against poyson and upon that account a certain Metalline alexiterian stone is by some Arabians called Bezardical because they say the Bezaar-stone will expugne all poysons But this Bezaar-stone now in frequent use is not effoded out of Mynes but taken out of the belly and internals of a certain Animal most frequent in Persia Coraso and the promontory of Comorim near Chyma which such as have have seen it call a Goat the incolists call it a Mountain-Goat for in form and magnitude it resembles an European Goat but its hair is shorter it is taller equalizing a Hart in procerity and it seems to be rightly denominated Hart-Goat because it partly bears the nature of a Hart partly of a Goat It is a most agile swift and fierce Animal easily leaping from rock to rock and sometime turning upon the Indian hunters and killing them it hath bifidous ungles like a Goat slender legs a prominent and short tail a rough body Goat-like but shorter hair cineriously yellow like a Hart a Goats head armed with two horns crooked backwards and ending in an obtuse point very black and hollow in their crasser part obsited with many tubercles I saw two at Cowbertum in the Castle of Dom. de Virty The aforesaid stone is generated in this Animals belly whose magnitude form and colour are various according to the nature and age of the Beast for there are greater stones in the greater and elder beast lesser in the lesser and younger all are of an oval figure but some rounder then others and others more quadrate Their colour is obscure and blackish or yellow and more pallid according to the Animals temperature whereof such as generate greater and crasser stones are less agile and less apt to run or leap which live more sadly and are at the first sight known by hunters Perhaps these stones are offensive and preternatural to these Animals as the stone is to man They are generated corticatery from a small rudiment of coagmentated sand which is by the apposition of some new humour agglutinated assimilated and wrought into certain crass plates like onyons according to the magnitude of the dust and apposition of the appellent humour This sand or dust in the centre of the stone is of more efficacy then any other part of the stone all whereof whether internal or external are smooth polite and splendent which are not so in adulterate stones wherein there is no dust or sand The Persians are the best of Bezaar-stones next the oriental but especially those that are taken out of Animals living in the Persian Mountains for those that live
upon no grounds use to stimulate Venery for they afford little of genital matter or flatulent spirits to the body but much Melancholical succe The cauls of the vulgar not of the Spanish Artichock should be selected for that is a kinde of Carduus as both of them seem to be depromed from that stock onely one of them hath by culture attained a more fair aspect and gracious sapour They are more celebrated for Junkets for the whole then Diet for the sick Condited Roots CHAP. 11. Radix Poeoniae condita or The condited Root of Poeony â„ž of the Roots of Poeony washed and purged lb ij boyl them in water till they grow soft then repose them to dry in a shade that their humidity may be evaporated then boyl them again with the like weight of Sugar with a little portion of the aforesaid decoction to the body of an Electuary which take from the fire and repose in a vessel for use The COMMENTARY Some Roots should be condited onely in the Spring before their succe be immitted into their branches boughs and leaves others in Autumn when Plants demit their leaves for then much of the Plants vertue goes into the Roots and then the humour is more throughly cocted then at other times others may be condited both in the Spring Summer and Autumn being alwayes succulent whose cauls are either not erupted or grown up or else dryed They must then be collected in that feason wherein their vertue is most prealent as the Roots of Ragwort and Rainbow in the Spring the Root of Poeony in August according to Sylvius or rather in March the Roots of Enula Bryony and Maidens-grass in Autumn as we have shewed at large in our Institutions Cap. 13. Lib. 1. Some of them are amare sharp and insuave which before their conditure should be often macerated in water others are grateful which being one day infused in warm water may in the same or another be cocted forthwith as the Roots of Poeony which may be well condited according to this prescribed form or some other of the like sort when they are cocted and the Sugar cocted like a soft Electuary affunded upon them if they become crude the liquor must be again cocted and that again repeated till they cease from their crudity These condited are of great potency to arceate and cure the Epilepsie if they be moderately taken in the morning fasting and at the hour of sleep CHAP. 12. Radices Eryngiorum conditae or The condited Roots of Sea-holly â„ž of the Roots of Sea-holly cut sloping and purged from its inward pith lb j. boyl them in water till they become soft dry them in a shade Sic Radices Buglossi condiuntur then let Sugar be dissolved in the same decoction and boyled to the spissitude of an Electuary to which adde the Roots and again gently cocted that their aqueous humidity may be dissipated repose them afterward in a Gally pot and preserved The COMMENTARY The Roots of Sea-holly being sweet needs undergo but one materation before conditure and then be cocted in the same water till they be soft then condited with Sugar as the form shews Mesue addes some Aromata's as Cinamon and Ginger wherewith be would have the Roots stuck and he boyls them with a portion of Honey and Sugar or else Honey onely thrice the quantity of the Roots But the form I have exhibited is more usual and better We everywhere in the Aarabian writings meet with Secacul which is hitherto taken for Sea-holly But its description given by Avicenna and Serapio shew that it is another Plant dissimilar in face if not faculties It grows in India and is there condited and is kept and given for venereous matters as also our Sea-holly which some do perperously call Secacul though their vertues be affine for both of them are hot and moist in the end of the first and beginning of the second degree They move Venery Therefore they do right who for defect of the Indian Secacul substiture our Sea-holly and let such cease to be angry at this substitution who must have something of that nature and cannot get the true Secacul Sea-holly is of the kinde of aculeated Plants whose leaves are tender not spinous and rigid and fit for cibaries Dioscorides saith they are broad asperated about their ambient aromatical to the gust and when perfectly grown aculeated with many horrid spines Its heads also are circumvalled with aoute spines its roots long black without white within tender sweet and grateful to the gust It is more largely described in our first Book of Medicinal Matter It s Root condited nourishes augments seed Vires excites venery moves urine and expels the sand of the Reins and Bladder CHAP. 13. Radices Symphiti condita or The condite Roots of Comfrey â„ž of the roots of the greater Comfrer slieed lb j. macerate and boyl them in a sufficent quantity of water till they become soft dry them in a shade for a whole day Let them Sugar be put to the decoction and boyled to the spissitude of an Electuary to which adde the roots and again let them be boyled till the aqueous superfluity be evaporated and when they begin to be condited repose them in a vessel for use The COMMENTARY The roots of Comfrey as also many other which by cocture become easily soft are rightly condited after this prescript yet some had rather prepare and condite them thus First they coct the washed and cleansed roots then they bray them then they transmit them through a fieve then put twice their quantity of Sugar to them and coct them to the consistence of an Electuary then they recalifie them and recond the conditure in Boxes And thus they do with all other crasser roots for thus they may be better purged from their fibres and more perfectly confected in every part They stay the running of blood from any part Vires cohibit the delapse of homours and agglutinate wounds in the internals CHAP. 14. Radices Enulae conditae or The condited roots of Enula-campane â„ž of the roots of Enula-campane washed purged and sliced lb ij infuse them in warm water for the space of four dayes the water being daily changed then boyl them till they grow tender then dry them in a shade afterwards take the like weight of Sugar which dissolve in the aforesaid decoction and boyl it up to the consistency of an Electuary then adde the aforesaid roots and coct them together gently which afterwards repose in boxes The COMMENTARY The roots of Enula must be macerated more or less as their insuavity requires and if it may be emended by two or three macerations they need no longer immersion lest their whole vertue be deposed in the water They roborate the stomack Viret recreate the heart discuss flatulency help concoction resist poysons and pestilent virulent diseases CHAP. 15. Radices Satyrii conditae or The condite roots of Satyrion â„ž of Satyrion roots washed