CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

ARSSMART

Names. The hot Arssmart is called also water-peper, or culrage. The mild Arssmart is called dead Arssmart percicaria, or peach-wort, because the leaves are so like the leaves of a peach-tree; it is also called plumbago.

Description. This hath broad leaves set at the great red joint of the stalks: with semi-circular blackish marks on them, usually either blueish or whitish, with such like seeds following. The root is long, with many strings thereat, perishing yearly; this hath no sharp taste (as another sort hath, which is quick and biting) but rather sour like sorrel, or else a little drying, or without taste.

Place. It grows in watery places, ditches, and the like, which for the most part are dry in summer.

Time. It flowereth in June, and the seed is ripe in August.

Government and virtues. As the virtue of both these is various, so is also their government; for that which is hot and biting, is under the dominion of Mars, but Saturn challengeth the other, as appears by that leaden coloured spot he hath placed upon the leaf.

It is of a cooling and drying quality and very effectual for putrified ulcers in man or beast, to kill worms and cleanse the putrified places. The juice thereof dropped in, or otherwise applied, consumeth all cold swellings, and dissolveth the congealed blood of bruises by strokes, falls, &c. A piece of the root, or some of the seeds bruised, and held to an aching-tooth, taketh away the pain. The leaves bruised and laid to the joint that hath a felon thereon taketh it away. The juice destroyeth worms in the ears, being dropped into them; if the hot Arssmart be strewed in a chamber, it will soon kill all the fleas; and the herb or juice of the cold Arssmart, put to a horse or other cattle's sores, will drive away the fly in the hottest time of summer; a good handful of the hot biting Arssmart put under a horse's saddle, will make him travel the better, although he were half tired before. The mild Arssmart is good against all imposthumes and inflammations at the beginning, and to heal green wounds.

All authors chop the virtues of both sorts of Arssmart together, as men chop herbs to the pot, when both of them are of clean contrary qualities. The hot Arssmart groweth not so high or tall as the mild doth, but hath many leaves of the colour of peach leaves, very seldom or never spotted; in other particulars it is like the former, but may easily be known from it, if you but be pleased to break a leaf of it cross your tongue for the hot will make your tongue to smart, so will not the cold. If you see them both together, you may easily distinguish them, because the mild hath far broader leaves; and our College of Physicians, out of the learned care of the public good, Anglice, their own gain, mistake the one for the other in their New-Master-piece, whereby they discover, 1. Their ignorance, 2. Their carelessness; and he that hath but half an eye may see their pride, witout a pair of spectacles. I have done what I could to distinguish them in the virtues, and when you find not the contrary named, use the cold. The truth is, I have not yet spoken with Dr. Reason, nor his brother Dr. Experience, concerning either of them.