Orchis
It hath a great variety of names, though most generally known by this. Description. To enumerate all the different sorts of it is needless; a description of the roots will be sufficient, which are to be used with some discretion. They have each of them a double root within, some of them round, others like a hand; these roots alter every year alternately; when the one riseth and waxeth full, the other groweth lank and perisheth; now it is those which are full grown that are to be used in medicine, the other being either of no use at all, or else, according to some, thwarting the operation of the full grown root, and undoing what it otherwise might have effected. Time. One or other of them may be found in flower from the beginning of April to the latter end of August.
Government and virtues. They are hot and moist in operation; under the dominion of Venus, and provoke lust exceedingly, which, it is said, the dry and withered roots restrain again; they are held to kill worms in children; also, being bruised and applied to the place, to help the king's evil. ORACH.
Description. Under the article arrach, atriplex, is described a species of this herb. This grows to four feet high; the stalks are whitish, the leaves are of a faint green, and the flowers of a light greenish white. The seeds which follow these are olive-coloured.
Place. It grows in many places wild, upon waste ground, but cultivation has improved it, and the seeds of the manured kind are the best for use. Time. It flowers in July; and the seed is ripe soon after. Government and virtues. It is under the government of Venus. It is an herb so innocent, that it may be eaten in the leaf in salad; but the great virtues of it lie in the seeds. These are to be gathered when just ripe; for, if suffered to stand longer, they lose part of their virtue. A pound of these bruised, and put into three quarts of spirit of a middling strength, between brandy and rectified spirit of wine, after standing six weeks, afford a light and not unpleasant tincture; a table spoonful of which, taken in a cup of water-gruel, has the same effect as a dose of ipecacuanha, only that its operation is milder, and it does not bind the bowels afterwards. After the operation, the patient should go to bed, and a gentle sweat will follow, carrying off whatever offending matter the motions had dislodged; and thus preventing many a long disease. It cures the head-ach, wandering pains, and the first attacks of the rheumatism. As some stomachs are harder to move than others, if the first does not perform its office, a second table-spoonful may be taken without fear.