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CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

 

FIELD SOUTHERNWOOD

Description. This has a long, thick, fibrous root. The stalks are shrubby, upright, and very much branched; they aare of a whitish colour toward the bottom, and reddish upward. The leaves are oblong, and divided into numerous narrow, segments, and their colour is a greyish green. The flowers stand in thick spikes at the tops of the branches, and they are small and brown.

Place. It is frequent by road-sides in our southern counties.

Time. It flowers in July.

Government and virtues. It is a powerful diuretic, and is good in hysteric cases. The best way of using it is in conserve made of the fresh tops, beaten up with twice their weight of sugar. It is a Mercurial plant, and worthy of more esteem that it has. It wants but to be more known to be very highly prized, having a fine, pleasant, warm, aromatic taste, with a little bitterness, but not enough to be disagreable: it is best given in the form of conserve, and with a great deal of success in weaknesses of the stomach. The manner is thus:- Clip four ounces of the leaves fine, and beat them in a mortar, with six ounces of loaf sugar, till the whole is like a paste; three times a day take the bigness of a nutmeg of this; it is pleasant, and very effectual; and one thing in its favour is particular, it is a composer, and always disposes to sleep. Opiates weaken the stomach, and must not be given often where their assistance is wished for; this possesses the soothing quality without the mischief. This quality is not singular to this plant; the columba is a bitter and an opiate, and thus nature mixes powers which to us appear contradictory.


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