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.
Marigolds
These being so plentiful in every garden, are so well known, that they need no description.
Time. They flower all the summer long, and sometimes in winter, if it be mild. Government, and virtues. It is an herb of the Sun, and under Leo. They strengthen the heart exceedingly, and are very expulsive, and little less effectual in the small-pox and measles than saffron. The juice of marigold leaves mixed with vinegar, and any hot swellings bathed with it, instantly giveth ease and assuageth it. The flowers either green or dried, are much used in possets, broths, and drink, as a comforter of the heart and spirits; and to expel any malign ant or pestilential quality which might annoy them. A plaister made with the dry flowers in powder, hog's grease, turpentine, and rosin, applied to the breast, strengthens and succours the heart infinitely in fevers, whether pestilential or not pestilential.