CND-0015Swelling, pain and the whole body
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.
It is very good to help digestion, and open obstructions of the brain, and hath so much purging quality in it (saith Avicen) as to expel those melancholy vapours from the spirits and blood which are in the heart and arteries, although it cannot do so in other parts of the body.
It is excellent for hot agues, burnings, scaldings, heat of the blood, heat of the liver, bloody-flux;
it helps to clarify the blood, and mitigate heat in fevers.
Brook-lime and Water-Cresses are generally used together in diet-drink, with other things serving to purge the blood and body from all ill humours that would destroy health, and are helpful to the scurvy.
It strengthens the attractive faculty in man, and clarifies the blood, because the one is ruled by Mars.
The tree is abundantly under the dominion of Jupiter, and therefore the fruit must needs breed good blood, and yield commendable nourishment to the body;
or among other herbs to cool and temper the blood and humours in the body.
It is a good remedy in the Spring, eaten (being first chopped small, and boiled well) in water-gruel, to cleanse the blood, and strengthen the liver, thereby to keep the body in health, and fitting it for that change of season that is coming.
All Docks are under Jupiter, of which the Red Dock, which is commonly called Bloodwort, cleanses the blood, and strengthens the liver;
The roots are of most use in physic drinks, and broth that are taken to cleanse the blood, to open obstructions of the liver, to provoke urine, and amend the ill colour in the face after sickness, and to cause a good habit through the body.
The juice or syrup made thereof, or the decoction made in whey by itself, with some other purging or opening herbs and roots to cause it to work the better (itself being but weak) is very effectual for the liver and spleen, opening the obstructions thereof, and clarifying the blood from saltish, choleric, and adust humours, which cause leprosy, scabs, tetters, and itches, and such like breakings-out of the skin, and after the purgings doth strengthen all the inwards parts.
The roots of this Bastard Rhubarb are used in opening and purging diet-drinks, with other things, to open the liver, and to cleanse and cool the blood.
it procures rest and sleep, hinders venery and venerous dreams, cooling heats, purges the stomach, increases blood, and helps the diseases of the reins and bladder.
This, in physical operations, is to open obstructions of the liver and spleen, to cleanse the blood, to loosen the belly, to cleanse the reins from gravel, and provoke urine.
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;
It is no less effectual to cool and temper the heat of the blood and stomach, and to stay any flux of the blood and humours, as lasks, bloody-flux, women’s courses, and running of the reins.
It is an excellent sauce for such whose blood wants clarifying, and for weak stomachs, being an herb of Mars, but naught for choleric people, though as good for such as are aged, or troubled with cold diseases.
Listed in the 1850 index; the herbal entry has no sentence naming this complaint. No quotation is recorded.
It cleanses the blood exceedingly:
It is good to cool any heat in the liver, blood, reins, and stomach, and in hot agues nothing better:
Jupiter claims this, and bids me tell you, it is good for the liver, and to breed blood.
but the Dutch Scurvygrass is of better effect, and chiefly used (if it may be had) by those that have the scurvy, and is of singular good effect to cleanse the blood, liver, and spleen, taking the juice in the Spring every morning fasting in a cup of drink.
Smallage is hotter, drier, and much more medicinal than parsley, for it much more opens obstructions of the liver and spleen, rarefies thick phlegm, and cleanses it and the blood withal.
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;
Baptista Sardas doth much commend the distilled water thereof, being drank, to help the French disease, to open the obstructions of the liver, and cleanse the blood from corrupted humours, and is profitable against the quotidian or tertian ague.
The berries are excellently good to cool the liver, the blood, and the spleen, or an hot choleric stomach;
for swoonings and passions of the heart, for the heat and head-ache in children, and for the blood and liver.
in diseases of the blood, use the red Centaury;
it tempers the blood, and allays hot fits of agues.
It cleanses the blood, and fretteth the liver and reins from obstructions, provokes women’s courses, expels the secundine, and the dead child;
it cleanses the lungs, and by rectifying the blood, causes a good colour to the whole body.
They are more powerful against the scurvy, and to cleanse the blood and humours, than Brooklime is, and serve in all the other uses in which Brooklime is available, as to break the stone, and provoke urine and woman’s courses.
Wood Sorrel serves to all the purposes that the other Sorrels do, and is more effectual in hindering putrefaction of blood, and ulcers in the mouth and body, and to quench thirst, to strengthen a weak stomach, to procure an appetite, to stay vomiting, and very excellent in any contagious sickness or pestilential fevers.
Nicholas Culpeper, The Complete Herbal, a new edition (London: Thomas Kelly, 1850). Project Gutenberg eBook #49513. SRC-CUL-1850