All-Heal, and you are FIT FIT

all-heal-Prunella-vulgaris Prunella vulgaris (Family: Lamiaceae) 

It is called All-heal, Hercules’s All-heal, and Hercules’s Wound-wort, because it is supposed that Hercules learned the herb and its virtues from Chiron, when he learned physic of him. Some call it Panay, and others Opopane-wort. all-heal-Prunella-vulgaris2

Description.

Its root is long, thick, and exceeding full of juice, of a hot and biting; taste, the leaves are great and large, and vinged almost like ash-tree leaves, but that they are something hairy, each leaf consisting of five or six pair of such wings set one against the other upon foot-stalks, broad below, but narrow towards the end ; one of the leaves is a little deeper at the bottom than the other, of a fair yellowish fresh green colour: they are of a bitterish taste, being chewed in the mouth; from among these rises up a stalk, green in colour, round in form, great and strong in magnitude, five or six feet in altitude, with many joints, and some leaves thereat ; towards the top come forth umbels of small yellow flowers, tiller which are passed away, you may find whitish, yellow, short, flat seeds, bitter also in taste.

Place

Haring given you a description of the herb from bottom to top, give me leave to tell you, that there are other herbs called by this name; but because they are strangers in England, I give only the description or this, which is easily to be had in the gardens of divers places.

Time.

1

Although Gerrard saith, that they flower from the beginning of May to the end of  December, experience teaches them that keep it in their gardens, that it flowers not till the latter en of the Summer, and sheds its seed presently after.

Government and virtues.

latter en of the Summer, and sheds its seed presently after. It is under the dominion of Mars, hot, biting, and choleric; and remedies what evils Mars inflicts the body of man with, by sympathy, as vipers’ flesh attracts poison, and the load stone iron. It kills the and helps all joint-aches. lt helps all cold griefs of the head, the vertigo, falling-sickness, the lethargy, the wind cholic, obstructions of the liver and spleen, stone in the kidneys and bladder. It provokes the terms, expels the dead birth: it is excellent good for the griefs of the sinews, itch, stone, and tooth-ache, the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts, and purges choler very gently.worms, helps the gout, cramp, and convulsions, provokes urine,  and helps all joint-aches. It helps all cold griefs of the head, the vertigo, falling-sickness, the lethargy, the wind cholic, obstructions of the liver and spleen, stone in the kidneys and bladder. It provokes the terms, expels the dead birth: it is excellent good for the griefs of the sinews, itch, stone, and tooth-ache, the biting of mad dogs and venomous beasts, and purges choler very gently.

CulpeperNicholas Culpeper

Share

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *