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CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

 

SEA WORMWOOD

Description. The stalk is white, woolly, hard, from half to a yard high, and has a few short and irregular branches. The leaves are long, narrow, tough, firm, white, and hoary; very much like southernwood. The root lies deep, and is woody; the flowers are of a yellowish brown, and the shoots from which they depend, hang drooping.

Place. This is a perennial; a hardy weed, that covers many acreas of our sea-coast in different parts of the kingdom; a spreading plant, and of a singular, though not elegant appearance.

Time. This species flowers in July.

Government and virtues. This is an herb of Mars. It is a very noble bitter, and succeeds in procuring an appetite, better than the common Wormwood which is best to assist digestion. The flowery tops, and the young leaves and shoots, posses the virtues; the older leaves, and the stalks, should be thrown away as useless. Boiling water poured upon it produces an excellent stomachic infusion; but the best way is, taking it in a tincture made with brandy. For lighter complaints, the conserve, such as directed to be made of field southernwood, agreeably answers the purpose. The apothecaries usually put three times as much sugar as of the ingredients in their conserves; but the virtue is lost in the sweetness: those will not keep so well that have less sugar, but it is easy to make them fresh as they are wanted. The power and efficacy of Wormwoods in general are scarce to be credited in the vast extent of cases to which they may be applied. Hysteric complaints have been completely cured by the constant use of this tincture. In the scurvy, and in the hypochondriacal disorders of studious sedentary men, few things have greater effect; for these it is best in strong infusions; and great good has risen from common Wormwood, given in jaundice and dropsies. The whole blood, and all the juices of the body, are affected by taking Wormwood. Women using it whilst suckling, their milk turns bitter. The shops make use of this instead of the Roman Wormwood, and have done so for more than a hundred years; Parkinson complaining in his time that the physicians and apothecaries made use of it instead of the former, though it fell short of it in virtue.


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