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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White Lilies
It were in vain to describe a plant so commonly known in every one's garden; therefore I shall not tell you what they are, but what they are good for. Government and virtues. They are under the dominion of the Moon, and by antipathy to Mars expel poison; they are excellently good in pestilential fevers, the roots being bruised and boiled in wine, and the decoction drank; for it expels the venom to the exterior parts of the body; The juice of it being tempered with barley meal, baked, and so eaten for ordinary bread, is an excellent cure for the dropsy. An ointment made of the root, and hog's grease, is excellent good for scald heads, unites the sinews when they are cut, and cleanses ulcers. The root boiled in any convenient decoction, gives speedy delivery to women in travel, and expels the after-birth. The root roasted, and mixed with a little hog's grease, makes a gallant poultice to ripen and break plague sores. The ointment is excellent good for swellings in the privities, and will cure burnings and scaldings without a scar, and trimly deck a blank place with hair.