The Oak
It is so well known (the timber thereof being the glory and safety of this nation by sea) that it needeth no description.
Government and virtues. Jupiter owns the tree. The leaves and bark of the oak, and the acorn cups, do bind and dry very much. The inner bark of the tree, and the thin skin that covereth the acorn, are most used to stay the spitting of blood, and the bloody flux. The decoction of that bark, and the powder of the cups, do stay vomitings, spitting of blood, bleeding at the mouth, or other fluxes of blood in men or women; lasks also, and the involuntary flux of natural seed. The acorn in powder, taken in wine, provoketh urine, and resisteth the poison of venomous creatures. The decoction of acorns and the bark, made in milk, and taken, resisteth the force of poisonous herbs and medicines, as also the virulency of cantharides, when one by eating them hath his bladder ulcerated, and pisseth blood, Hippocrates saith, he used the fumes of oak leaves to women that were troubled with the strangling of the mother; and Galen applied them, being bruised, to cure green wounds. The distilled water of the oaken buds, before they break out into leaves, is good to be used either inwardly or outwardly, to assuage inflammations, and to stop all manner of fluxes in man or woman. The same is singularly good in pestilential and hot burning fevers; for it resisteth the force of the infection, and allayeth the heat. It cooleth the heat of the liver, breaketh the stone in the kidneys, and stayeth womens' courses. The decoction of the leaves worketh the same effects. The water that is found in the hollow places of old oaks, is very effectual against any foul or spreading scabs. The distilled water (or decoction, which is better) of the leaves, is one of the best remedies that I know of for the whites in women.