CND-0004Fevers and infections
Old claims, quoted verbatim: not medical advice. A warning sits above the claims and never hides them; no warning does not mean safe, only that no source here has flagged the plant.
A draught of the decoction taken warm before the fit, first removes, and in time rids away the tertian or quartan agues.
It makes the heart merry, drives away melancholy, quickens the spirits, is good against quartan agues, stancheth bleeding at mouth and nose, if it be stamped and applied to the nape of the neck;
being steeped in wine and drank, it helps those continual agues that come by the plenty of stubborn humours;
It is excellent for hot agues, burnings, scaldings, heat of the blood, heat of the liver, bloody-flux;
And all the preparations thereof, as barley-water and other things made thereof, give great nourishment to persons troubled with fevers, agues, and heats in the stomach:
The black Bilberries are good in hot agues and to cool the heat of the liver and stomach;
The roots are very effectual against all melancholy diseases, especially such as are of long standing, as quartan agues and madness;
it also helps surfeit, and alters the fit of agues, if three or four ounces thereof, with as much of the water of the lesser Centaury, and a little sugar put therein, be taken a little before the fit comes, and the party be laid down to sweat in his bed.
The leaves hereof bruised and laid to their sides that have an ague, suddenly ease the fits;
The flowers of Camomile beaten, and made up into balls with Gill, drive away all sorts of agues, if the part grieved be anointed with that oil, taken from the flowers, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot, and afterwards laid to sweat in his bed, and that he sweats well.
It cures quartan agues, and other diseases of melancholy, and adust choler, by sympathy to Saturn, Mars being exalted in Capricorn.
The distilled water hereof simply, or with Elder flowers and Nightshade, is a singularly good remedy against all hot agues, to drink two ounces at a time, and apply cloths wet therein to the head and stomach, which also does much good, being applied to any hot swellings and inflammations:
A syrup made thereof is very effectual for all those inward griefs and hurts, and the distilled water for the same purpose also, and for outward wounds and sores in the fleshy or sinewy part of the body whatsoever, as also to take away the fits of agues, and to allay the sharpness of humours.
it dissolves without attraction, opens obstructions, and helps their evil effects, and it is a wonderful help to all sorts of dry agues.
Purging the veins of the choleric and phlegmatic humours, and helps children in agues, a little worm seed being put thereto.
The decoction thereof made with water and a cock chicken, is a most safe medicine against the hot fits of agues.
The decoction of the leaves, or the juice, or the distilled water of Endive, serve well to cool the excessive heat of the liver and stomach, and in the hot fits of agues, and all other inflammations in any part of the body;
and helps the melancholy of the heart, and is available in quartan and quotidian agues;
The mucilage of the seed made with Rose-water, and a little sugar-candy put thereto, is very good in all hot agues and burning fevers, and other inflammations, to cool the thirst, and lenify the dryness and roughness of the tongue and throat.
The same being drank, doth ease the pains and torments of the belly and sides, the shaking of agues, the diseases of the liver and spleen, the worms of the belly, the stone in the reins, convulsions and cramps that come of old humours;
as also the shaking fits of agues, to take a draught before the fit comes.
But the Garlick hath some more peculier virtues besides the former, _viz._ it hath a special quality to discuss inconveniences coming by corrupt agues or mineral vapours;
It helps agues of all sorts, and the yellow jaundice, as also the bots in cattle;
The decoction thereof taken for four days together, drives away and cures both tertain and quartan agues.
It purges the body of choler and phlegm, being either taken of itself, made into powder, and drank in a draught of white wine, or steeped therein all night, and taken fasting, or put among other purges, as shall be thought convenient, cleansing the stomach, liver, and blood, opening obstructions, and helping those griefs that come thereof, as the jaundice, dropsy, swelling of the spleen, tertain and daily agues, and pricking pains of the sides;
for inflammations and the hot fits of agues.
A syrup made of the juice and sugar, cures the yellow jaundice, eases the head-ache that comes of heat, and tempers the heat of the liver and stomach, and is profitably given in long and hot agues that rise in choler and blood.
a posset made with the juice of Houseleek, is singularly good in all hot agues, for it cools and tempers the blood and spirits, and quenches the thirst;
are excellently good in all sorts of agues;
The leaves of either of the sorts, both specified, and the roots also boiled in wine or water, or in broth with Parsley or Fennel roots, do help to open the body, and are very convenient in hot agues, or other distempers of the body, to apply the leaves so boiled warm to the belly.
and taken before the cold fits of agues, alters, lessens, and cures them.
Our Lady’s Thistle is under Jupiter, and thought to be as effectual as Carduus Benedictus for agues, and to prevent and cure the infection of the plague:
An ounce of the juice taken in a draught of Muskadel an hour before the fit of the ague comes, it will assuredly drive away the ague at the second or third time taken at the farthest.
Dioscorides saith, that three roots boiled in wine and taken, helps the tertain agues, and for the quartan agues, (but letting the number pass as fabulous) I conceive the decoction of divers roots may be effectual.
Meuse (who is called the Physician’s Evangelist for the certainty of his medicines, and the truth of his opinion) saith, That it dries up thin humours, digests thick and tough, and purges burnt choler, and especially tough and thick phlegm, and thin phlegm also, even from the joints, and therefore good for those that are troubled with melancholy, or quartan agues, especially if it be taken in whey or honied water, or in barley-water, or the broth of a chicken with Epithymum, or with Beets and Mallows.
It is also used to cool inflammations, agues, or frenzies, or to stay defluxions which cause a cough, or consumptions, and also other fluxes of the belly or women’s courses;
It is good to cool any heat in the liver, blood, reins, and stomach, and in hot agues nothing better:
It is said to alter and take away the fits of the quartan agues, and to make a merry heart, for which purpose some use the flowers, and some the leaves.
The syrup of dried red Roses strengthens a stomach given to casting, cools an over-heated liver, and the blood in agues, comforts the heart, and resists putrefaction and infection, and helps to stay lasks and fluxes.
and being boiled in water, it helps continual agues;
It provokes urine and women’s courses, and is singularly good against the yellow jaundice, tertian and quartan agues, if the juice thereof be taken, but especially made up into a syrup.
Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues;
The oil thereof anointed on the back-bone before the fits of agues come, takes them away:
The decoction of the leaves and seeds drank somewhat warm before the fits of agues, whether they be tertains or quartans, alters the fits, and, by often using, doth take them quite away.
It expels poison much, resists pestilential fevers, being exceeding good also for tertian agues:
A decoction thereof made with wine, and drank, is very effectual against long lingering agues;
it opens obstructions of the liver, gall, and spleen, helps the jaundice, and eases the pains in the sides and hardness of the spleen, used outwardly, and is given with very good effect in agues.
The distilled water of the green husks, before they be half ripe, is of excellent use to cool the heat of agues, being drank an ounce or two at a time:
It is held to be good against the biting of serpents, and other venomous beasts, against the plague, and both tertian and quartan agues.
It is good also for the liver and the jaundice, and all hot agues, to cool the heat, and quench the thirst;
it tempers the blood, and allays hot fits of agues.
the leaves do cool all inflammations, both outward and inward heat of agues;
Being bruised and applied to the soles of the feet and hand wrists, it wonderfully cools the hot fits of agues, be they never so violent.
The decoction made with Mead, and a little Pennyroyal, is good for those that are troubled with putrid agues, whether quotidian, tertian, or quartan, and to draw down and evacuate the blood and humours, that by falling into the eyes, do hinder the sight;
Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, a new edition (London: Thomas Kelly, 1850). Project Gutenberg eBook #49513. SRC-CUL-1850