Nettles
Nettles are so well known that they need no description; they may be found, by feeling, in the darkest night.
Government and virtues. This is also an herb Mars claims dominion over. You know Mars is hot and dry, and you know as well that winter is cold and moist; then you may know as well the reason why nettle-tops, eaten in the spring, consumeth the phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man, that the coldness and moistness of winter hath left behind. The roots or leaves boiled, or the juice of either of them, or both, made into an electuary with honey and sugar, is a safe and sure medicine to open the pipes and passages of the lungs, which is the cause of wheezing and shortness of breath, and helpeth to expectorate tough phlegm, as also to raise the imposthumed pleurisy, and spend it by spitting: the same helpeth the swelling of the almonds of the throat, the mouth and throat being gargled therewith. The juice is also effectual to settle the palate of the mouth in its place, and to heal and temper the inflammations and soreness of the mouth and throat. The decoction of the leaves in wine, being drank, is singularly good to provoke womens' courses, to settle the suffocation, strangling of the mother, and all other diseases thereof; as also applied outwardly with a little myrrh. The same also, or the seed, provoketh urine, and expelleth the gravel and stone in the reins or bladder, often proved to be effectual in many that have taken it. The same killeth the worms in children, easeth pains in the sides, and dissolveth the windiness in the spleen, as also in the body, although others think it only powerful to provoke venery. The juice of the leaves, taken two or three days together, stayeth bleeding at the mouth. The seed being drank, is a remedy against the stinging of venomous creatures, the biting of mad dogs, the poisonful qualities of hemlock, henbane, night-shade, mandrake, or other such like herbs that stupify or dull the senses, as also the lethargy; especially to use it outwardly, to rub the forehead or temples in the lethargy, and the places stung or bitten with beasts, with a little salt. The distilled water of the herb is also effectual (though not so powerful) for the diseases aforesaid; as for outward wounds and sores, to wash them, and to cleanse the skin from morphew, leprosy, and other discolourings thereof. The seed or leaves bruised, and put into the nostrils, stayeth the bleeding of them, and taketh away the flesh growing in them called polypus. The juice of the leaves, or the decoction of them, or of the root, is singularly good to wash either old, rotten, or stinking sores or fistulas, and gangrenes, and such as fretting, eating, or corroding scabs, manginess and itch in any part of the body, as also green wounds, by washing them therewith, or applying the green herb, bruised, thereunto, yea, although the flesh were separated from the bones: the same applied to our wearied members, refresh them, or replace those that have been out of joint, being first set up again, strengthen, drieth, and comforteth them, as also those places troubled with aches and gouts, and the defluxion of humours upon the joints or sinews; it easeth the pains, and drieth or dissolveth the defluxions. An ointment made of the juice, oil, and a little wax, is singularly good to rub cold and benumbed members. An handful of the leaves of green nettles, and another of wallwort or deanwort, bruised and applied simply, themselves, to the gout, sciatica, or joint-achs in any part, hath been found to be an admirable help thereunto.
NAVEW.
Description. The first leaves are moderately broad and long, they are of a pale green, in shape like a turnip leaf, but less, and very little hairy. The stalks grow to be two or three feet high, beset with smaller leaves, smooth as well as the stalk, and little or nothing jagged, especially those that grow higher upon the branches, which are round and broad at the bottom, and do encompass the stalk, ending in a narrow point, of a blueish green colour. The flowers grow many together on the tops of the stalks, made of four bright yellow leaves, and are succeeded by long cylindrical pods, containing small round black seed: the root is white, longer and slenderer than a turnip, but much like it in taste.
Place. It is sown in gardens.
Time. It flowers in April. The root is used in food, and the seed in physic. Government and virtues. This is a plant of Venus. The seed is commended by the ancients as good against all kinds of poisons, and the bites of venomous creatures; to provoke urine, and the terms. Matthiolus extols it against all kinds of infectious distempers, to expel the malignity, and cheer the heart; as also to drive out the small pox and measles. It is an ingredient in the therica andromachi; but common turnip-seed is often substituted.