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CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

BURNET

Names. It is also called sanguisorbia, pimpinella, bipenula, solbegrella, &c. Common garden burnet is so well known that it needeth no description; but there is another sort which is wild, the description whereof take as followeth.

Description. The great wild burnet hath winged leaves rising from the roots like the garden burnet, but not so many; yet each of these leaves is at least twice as large as the other, and nicked in the same manner about the edges, of a greyish colour on the under side; the stalks are larger, and rise higher, with many such like leaves set thereon, and greater heads at the tops, of a brownish green colour; and out of them come small, dark, purple flowers, like the former, but larger; the root is black like the other, but also greater; it hath almost neither scent nor taste therein like the garden kind.

Place. The first grows frequently in gardens; the wild kind groweth in divers counties of this kingdom, especially in Huntingdon and Northamptonshire in the meadows there: as also near London, by Pancras church, and by a causeway-side in the middle of a field by Paddington.

Time. They flower about the end of June and July, and their seed is ripe in August.

Government and virtues. It is an herb the Sun challengeth dominion over, and is a most precious herb, little inferior to betony; the continual use of it preserves the body in health, and the spirits in vigour; for if the sun be the preserver of life under God, his herbs are the best in the world to do it by. They are accounted to be both of one property, but the smaller is the most effectual, because quicker and more aromatical: it is a friend to the heart, liver, and other principal parts of a man's body: two or three of the stalks with leaves put into a cup of wine, especially claret, are known to quicken the spirits, refresh and cheer the heart, and drive away melancholy it is a special help to defend the heart from noisome vapours, and from infection of the pestilence, the juice thereof being taken in some drink, and the party laid to sweat immediately. They have also a drying and an astringent quality, whereby they are available in all manner of fluxes of blood or humours, to staunch bleedings inward or outward, lasks, scourings, the bloody flux, women's too-abundant courses, the whites, and the choleric belching and castings of the stomach; and is a singular good herb for all sorts of wounds both of the head and body, either inward or outward; for all old ulcers, or running cankers and moist sores; to be used either by the juice or decoction of the herb, or by the powder of the herb or root, or the water of the distilled herb, or ointment by itself, or with other things to be kept. The seed is also no less effectual both to stop fluxes and dry up moist sores, being taken in powder inwardly in wine or steeled water, that is, wherein hot gads of steel have been quenched: or the powder of the seed mixed with the ointments.


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