CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

STRAWBERRIES

Description. Strawberries have small reddish roots, full of fibres, from which spring many creeping slender threads, which take root and propagate; the leaves grow three together upon one footstalk, folded together at their first springing up, and are full of veins, of an oval figure, deeply serrated about the edges: the flowers spring from the root on long footstalks, four or five together, each of five small round white leaves, with several yellow stamina in the middle, and are followed by small fruit, of a round conical shape, of a reddish colour, of a pleasant, tart, grateful taste, and an agreeable smell, having the outside beset with a great many very small greenish seed.

Place. They grow in the woods, and frequently in gardens.

Time. They flower in May ordinarily, and the fruit is ripe shortly after.

Government and virtues. Venus owns the herb. Strawberries, when they are green, are cool and dry; but when they are ripe, they are cool and moist. The berries are excellently good to cool the liver, the blood, and the spleen, or an hot choleric stomach; to refresh and comfort the fainting spirits, and quench thirst. They are good also for other inflammations; yet it is not amiss to refrain from them in a fever, lest by their putrifying in the stomach they increase the fits. The leaves and roots boiled in wine and water, and drank, do likewise cool the liver and blood, and assuage all inflammations in the reins and bladder, provoke urine, and allay the heat and sharpness thereof. The same also being drank stays the bloody flux and women's courses, and helps the swelling of the spleen. The water of the Berries carefully distilled, is a sovereign remedy and cordial in the panting and beating of the heart, and is good for the yellow jaundice. The juice dropped into foul ulcers, or they washed therewith, or the decoction of the herb and root, doth wonderfully cleanse and help to cure them. Lotions and gargles for sore mouths, or ulcers therein, or in the privy parts or elsewhere, are made with the leaves and roots thereof; which is also good to fasten loose teeth, and to heal spungy foul gums. It helps also to stay catarrhs, or defluctions of rheum in the mouth, throat, teeth, or eyes. The juice or water is singularly good for hot and red inflamed eyes, if dropped into them, or they bathed therewith. It is also of excellent property for all pushes, wheals and other breakings forth of hot and sharp humours in the face and hands, and other parts of the body, to bathe them therewith, and to take away any redness in the face, or spots, or other deformities in the skin, and to make it clear and smooth. Some use this medicine: Take so many Strawberries as you shall think fitting, and put them into a distillatory, or body of glass fit for them, which being well closed, set it in a bed of horse dung for your use. It is an excellent water for hot inflamed eyes, and to take away a film or skin that begins to grow over them.

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