CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

ALL HEAL

Names. It is called 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 paney, and others opopane wort.

Description. 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 ariseth up a stalk, green in colour, round in form, great and strong in magnitude, five or six feet high 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 the bottom to the 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 teacheth them that keep it in their gardens, that it flowers not till the latter end of the summer, and sheds its seed presently after.

Government and virtues. It is under the dominion of Mars, hot, biting, and choleric; and remedies what evils Mars afflicts the body of man with, by sympathy, as viper's 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, to 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-ach, the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts, and purgeth choler very gently.