Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Garden Arrach
Names. Called also orach, and orage.
Description. It is so commonly known to every housewife, it were but labour lost to describe it.
Time. It flowereth and seedeth from June to the end of August. Government and virtues. It is under the government of the Moon; in quality cold and moist like unto her. It softeneth and looseneth the body of man, being eaten, and fortifieth the expulsive faculty in him. The herb, whether it be bruised and applied to the throat, or boiled, and in like manner applied, it matters not much, it is excellent good for swellings in the throat; the best way, I suppose, is to boil it, and having drunk the decoction inwardly, apply the herb outwardly: The decoction of it besides, is an excellent remedy for the yellow jaundice.