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.
Home › Contents › Sea Feverfew
Sea Feverfew
Description. This grows about eight inches high, upright, and branchy. The stalk is thick and ruddy; and the leaves are of a dull green, thick, swelled up, hollow underneath, and composed of many parts, which are again cut down to the rib. The flowers are white, with a low yellowish disk. Place. This is a sea-side perennial plant, frequently found in Cornwall. Time. They blow in August.
Government and virtues. This is a weed of our waste marshes, where it grows in its greatest perfection. Some curious physic gardeners have produced it, but it is not then so full of virtue as when found wild. The virtues of feverfew are very great. It is an excellent deobstruent. It is, as observed before, a great promoter of the menses, and cures those hysteric complaints which rise from their obstruction. It also destroys worms. In short, the virtues of any sort of feverfew are beyond all praise, and above all value.