Mandrake
The mandrake is male and female.
Place. It grows in hot regions; woods, mountains, and gardens. Time. It springs in March, flowers in April; the fruit is ripe in August. Qualities and virtues. It is of a cold nature. The root is phlegmatic, and may be eaten with pepper and hot spices. The apples are cold and moist, the bark of the root cold and dry, and the juice is good in all cooling ointments. The dried juice of the root, taken in a small quantity, purgeth phlegm and melancholy. In collyriums, it healeth pains of the eyes. In a pessary, it draweth forth the dead child and secundine. The green leaves, bruised with axungia and barley-meal, heal all hot swellings and inflammations; and, applied to the parts, consume hot ulcers and imposthumes. A suppository made of the juice, put into the fundament, causeth sleep. Infused in wine, and drauk, it causeth sleep, and easeth pains; the apples smelt to, or the juice taken in a small quantity, also cause sleen. The seed and fruit do cleanse the womb; the leaves heal knots in the flesh, and the roots heal St, Anthony's fire, &e. and, boiled with ivy, mollify the same. The oil of mandrakes is very cold; yet it may be anointed upon the noses and temples of those that have a phrenzy: if the patient sleep too long, dip a sponge in vinegar, and hold it to the nose. Also, it heals vehement pains of the head, and the tooth-ach, when applied to the cheeks and jaws, and causeth sleep.