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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Ser Mountain
Description. Ser mountain, or, as it is sometimes called hartwort, has a large thick root, that strikes deep into the ground, with a great many stringy fibres at the bottom. The stalk rises to be as high as an ordinary man, full of branches, having many large winged leaves as it were encompassing the stalks with a thin sheath, cut into several segments, each of which is usually divided into five, and at the end three oval smaller leaves, smooth, and pointed at the end. It has large umbels of small five leaved, white flowers, each of which is succeeded by two large long seeds, striated on the back, and having a leafy border on each side, of a brown colour, a pretty strong smell, and a hot bitterish taste.
Place. It grows upon the Alps, but with us is found only in some gardens. Time. It flowers in June.
Government and virtues. It is a warm martial plant, both heating and drying; it provokes urine and the menses, expels the birth and after-birth; and is good in disorders of the head and womb. The seeds are put both into theriaca and mithridate.