CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

BARLEY

The continual usefulness hereof hath made all in general so acquainted herewith, that it is altogether needless to describe it, several kinds hereof plentifully growing, being yearly sown in this land. The virtues thereof take as followeth.

Government and virtues. It is a notable plant of Saturn: if you view diligently its effects by sympathy and antipathy; you may easily perceive a reason of them; as also why barley bread is so unwholesome for melancholy people. Barley, in all the parts and compositions thereof (except malt) is more cooling than wheat, and a little cleansing: and all the preparations thereof, as barley-water and other things made thereof do give great nourishment to persons troubled with fevers, agues, and heats in the stomach. A poultice made of barley meal or flour boiled in vinegar and honey, and a few dry figs put into them, dissolveth all hard impostumes, and assuageth inflammations, being thereto applied. And being boiled with melilot and camomile flowers, and some linseed, fenugreek, and rue in powder, and applied warm, it easeth pains in the side and stomach, and windiness of the spleen. The meal of barley and fleawort boiled in water, and made a poultice with honey and oil of lilies applied warm, cureth swellings under the ears, throat, neck, and such like; and a plaister made thereof with tar, wax, and oil, helpeth the king's evil in the throat: boiled with sharp vinegar into a poultice, and laid on hot, helpeth the leprosy: being boiled in red wine with pomegranate rinds and myrtles, stayeth the lask, or other flux of the belly: boiled with vinegar and quince, it easeth the pains of the gout; barley flour, white salt, honey, and vinegar mingled together, taketh away the itch speedily and certainly. The water distilled from the green barley in the end of May, is very good for those that have defluctions of humours fallen into their eyes, and easeth the pain, being dropped into them; or white bread steeped therein, and bound on the eyes, doth the same.