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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Gooseberry-Bush
Names. Called also feap-berry, and in Sussex dewberry-bush, and likewise in many places wine-berry.
Government and virtues. They are under the dominion of Venus. The berries, whilst they are unripe, being scalded or baked, are good to procure the return of a lost appetite, especially if the cause proceeds from a stomach afflicted with choleric humours. They are exceeding good to stay the longings of pregnant women. The decoction of the leaves of the tree cools hot swellings and inflammations, as also the St. Anthony's fire. The ripe gooseberries, being eaten, are an excellent remedy to allay the violent heat of the stomach and liver; and the young and tender leaves break the stone and expel the gravel both from the bladder and kidnies. If they are taken immoderately, they are supposed to breed crude humours, and engender worms.