Important: Safety Warning
This page describes preparations historically taken to end pregnancy or "bring on the menses." These substances do not work as claimed and are seriously toxic; their use has caused poisoning and death.
In addition, 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.
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Rough Shepherd's Needle
Description. This grows from a long, slender, white fibrous root, with finely divided leaves, which are deeply serrated, of a pale green, and very like those of the common parsley. The stalk is round, upright, green, and a yard high. The flowers grow at the tops of the branches in little umbels, surrounded with numerous long and slender leaves, forming a kind of general cup. The seeds are small, brown, and striated.
Place. It is common in hedges, on ditch-banks, and in gardens. Time. It is an annual and flowers in May.
Government and virtues. It is under Venus, and should be gathered when that planet is in exaltation-Some account it to be a poisnous plant, but there does not appear any thing certain on that head. It has been tried and found to be innocent. It is accounted to be hot and dry, comforting the head and stomach, and helping vertiginous disorders. It is likewise a good deobstruent, opening obstructions of the womb, and procuring the catemina.