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Prickly Asparagus, or Sperage

Description. It groweth usually in gardens, and some of it grows wild in Appleton meadows in Gloucestershire, where the poor people do gather the buds of young shoots, and sell them cheaper than our garden asparagus is sold at London.

Time. They do for the most part flower, and bear their berries late in the year, or not at all, although they are housed in winter. Government and virtues. They are both under the dominion of Jupiter. The young buds or branches, boiled in ordinary broth, make the belly soluble and open, and boiled in white wine, provoke urine, being stopped, and is good against the stranguary or difficulty of making water; it expelleth the gravel and stone out of the kidneys, and helpeth pains in the reins. And boiled in wine or vinegar, it is prevalent for them that have their arteries loosened, or are troubled with the hipgout or sciatica. The decoction of the roots boiled in wine and taken, is good to clear the sight, and being held in the mouth easeth the tooth-ach; and being taken fasting several mornings together, stirreth up bodily lust in man or woman (whatever some have written to the contrary.) The garden asparagus nourisheth more than the wild, yet hath it the same effects in all the afore-mentioned diseases. The decoction of the roots in white wine, and the back and belly bathed therewith, or kneeling, or lying down in the same, or sitting therein as a bath, hath been found effectual against pains and reigns of the bladder, pains of the mother and cholic, and generally against all pains that happen to the lower parts of the body, and no less effectual against stiff and benumbed sinews, or those that are shrunk by cramps and convulsions, and helpeth the sciatica.