Important: Safety Warning
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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The Furze Bush
It is so well known by this name, as it is in some counties by the name of gorz or whins, that I shall not need to write any description thereof: my intent being to teach my countrymen what they know not, rather than to tell them again of that which is generally known before.
Place. They are known to grow on dry barren heaths, and other waste, gravelly, or sandy grounds, in all counties of this land.
Time. They also flower in the summer months.
Government and virtues. Mars owns the herb. They are hot and dry, and open obstructions of the liver and spleen. A decoction made with the flowers thereof hath been found effectual against the jaundice, as also to provoke urine, and cleanse the kidneys from gravel or stone engendered in them. Mars doth also this by sympathy.