CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

WILD CLARY

Name. Wild clary is most blasphemously called Christ's eye, because it cures diseases of the eyes. I could wish for my soul, blasphemy, ignorance, and tyranny, were ceased among physicians, that they may be happy and I joyful.

Description. It is like the other clary, but lesser, with many stalks about a foot and half high. The stalks are square, and somewhat hairy; the flowers are of a blueish colour: He that knows the common clary cannot be ignorant of this.

Place. It grows commonly in this nation in barren places; you may find it plentifully, if you look in the fields near Gray's Inn, and the fields near Chelsea.

Time. They flower from the beginning of June, till the latter end of August.

Government and virtues. It is something hotter and drier than the garden clary is, yet nevertheless under the dominion of the Moon, as well as that; the seeds of it being beat to powder, and drank with wine, is an admirable help to provoke lust. A decoction of the leaves being drank warms the stomach, and it is a wonder if it should not, the stomach being under Cancer, the house of the Moon. Also it helps digestion, and scatters congealed blood in any part of the body. The distilled water hereof cleanseth the eyes of redness, waterishness, and heat: It is a gallant remedy for dimness of sight, to take one of the seeds of it, and put into the eyes, and there let it remain till it drops out of itself, (the pain will be nothing to speak on,) it will cleanse the eyes of all filthy and putrefied matter; and in often repeating it, will take off a film which covereth the sight; a handsomer, safer, and easier method by a great deal, than to tear it off with a needle.