CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

COMMON TANSY

Description. The leaves of this plant are of a bright and pleasant green, and of a very fragrant smell, not coarse, as that of the garden Tansy, but a pleasant aromatic. The stalk grows upright, branchy, of a light green, and a yard high; the flowers are large, and of a bright yellow. The leaves are winged, and the small ones are deeply cut in; and the root is of a dark brown colour.

Place. This sort is most frequently found wild on high grounds, and dry pastures. It is a perennial, and well-looking plant.

Time. It blows in July and August.

Government and virtues. This herb is undoubtedly under the government of Venus. It is an agreeable bitter, a carminative, and a destroyer of worms, for which case a powder of the flowers should be given from six to twelve grains at night and mornings. Worms are often the cause of putrid fevers and epileptic fits, and sometimes bring on a consumption. The medicines usually administered against these are often ineffectual, and many of them very mischievous. Hellebore has brought on convulsions; and ever one knows the danger of mercurials. Besides, it is from these deleterious compounds that half the defective teeth in young people are owing. The flowers are the part to be used, and they should be given in powder, but there requires care in the collecting of them, to obtain all their virtue. Clip off a quantity of Tansy flowers, before they are over blown, close to the stalk. This must be done in the middle of a dry day; spread them on the bottom of a hair sieve turned upside down; shake them often about, and let the wind pass through them, but keep them from the sun, and thus you may have them always. The leaves only are used, and are accounted restringent and vulnerary, good to stop all kind of fluxesand preternatural evacuations, to dissolve coagulated blood, to help those who are bruised by falls: outwardly it is used as a cosmetic, to take off freckles, sun-burn, and morphew; as also in restringent gargarisms. The powder of the herb taken in some of the distilled water, helps the whites in women, but more especially if a little coral and ivory in powder be put to it. It is also commended to help children that are bursten, and have a rupture, being boiled in water and salt. Being boiled in water and drank, it eases the griping pains of the bowels, and is good for the sciatica and joint-achs. The same boiled in vinegar, with honey and alum, and gargled in the mouth, eases the pains of the tooth-ach, fastens loose teeth, helps the gums that are sore, settles the palate of the mouth in its place, when it is fallen down. It cleanses and heals ulcers in the mouth or secret parts, and is very good for inward wounds, and to close the tips of green wounds, and to heal old, moist, and corrupt running sores in the legs or elsewhere. Being bruised and applied to the soles of the feet and handwrists, it wonderfully colls the hot fits of agues, be they never so violent. The distilled water cleanses the skin of all discolourings therein, as morphew, sun-burnings, &c. as also pimples, freckles, and the like; and dropped into the eyes, or cloths wet therein and applied, takes away the heat and inflammations in them.