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.
Tarragon
Description. Tarragon shoots up a great many round stalks full of branches, clothed with long narrow leaves, like those of hyssop, but sharper pointed, smooth, and shining on the top of the stalks grow the flowers, small and greenish, resembling those of southernwood, but fewer in number, and thinner-set, and upon long foot-stalks. The leaves have a pretty strong smell and taste, somewhat like fennel.
Place. It is planted in gardens.
Time. It flowers in July and August.
Government and virtues. The leaves, which are chiefly used, are heating and drying, and good for those who have the flux, or any preternatural discharge. It is a mild martial plant. An infusion of the young tops increases the urinary discharge, and gently promotes the menses.
TEA.
Description. The Tea Shrub has a woody spreading root, several slender branches, with numerous oblong leaves, like those of the cherry tree, flowers like those of the dog-rose, and a fruit composed of one, two, and for the most part, three berries. Only one species of the Tea plant is as yet known: the differences in this commodity, as brought to us, proceeding from a difference in the climate, soil, age, method of collection, and curation. The preparation of the leaves consists in drying or roasting them over the fire in an iron pan, and rolling them, while hot, with the palm of the hand on a mat, till they become curled, it is then put up in chests of tin and lead, to be preserved from the air.
Place. It is a native of China and Japan, and is cultivated in all the eastern parts.
Virtues. Tea, at present, is more used for pleasure than as a medicine. Green Tea, however, is diuretic, and carries an agreeable roughness with it into the stomach, which gently astringes the fibres of that organ, and gives such a tone as is necessary for a good digestion: the Bohea is softening and nutritious, and proper in all inward decays. Strong tea, however, is prejudicial for weak nerves, and especially for children; but at times, is very salutary for violent head-achs and sicknesses occasioned by inebriation.