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.
Home › Contents › The Jacinth, or Hyacinth
The Jacinth, or Hyacinth
Description. The common Spring plant our children gather with their cowslips and May flowers, and call blue-bells. The root is white and roundish; the leaves are narrow and long, like grass, but of a deep green colour, and smooth surface; the stalks are round, upright, and smooth; they have no leaves on them. The flowers are large, and of a beautiful blue; they are hollow, oblong, and turn up at the rim. The root is the part used.
Virtues. It abounds in a slimy juice, but it is to be dried, and this must be done carefully; the decoction of it operates well by urine, and the powder is balsamic, and somewhat styptic. It is not enough known: there is hardly a more powerful remedy for the whites.