Friday 22 June 2012

Culpeper's remedies-Platform One

A little bit of background on the Culpeper remedies used in Juliet Lockhart's exhibition.    Now on Platform One.

Nettle
Nettle… consumes the phlegmatic superfluities in the body of man that the coldness and moistness of winter hath left behind. …. is a safe and sure medicine to open the pipes and passages of the lungs, which is the cause of wheezing and shortness of breath, and helps to expectorate tough phlegm, as also to raise the imposthumed pleurisy; and spend it by spitting; the same helps the swelling of the almonds of the throat, the mouth and throat being gargled therewith.
Thistle
...The seed of this Star Thistle made into powder, and drank in wine, provokes urine, and helps to break the stone, and drives it forth. The root in powder, and given in wine, and drank, is good against the plague and pestilence: and drank in the morning fasting for some time together, it is very profitable for a fistule in ay part of the body. 
Comfrey
…the great comfrey helpeth those that spit blood:…the root boiled in water or wine, and the decoction drunk, helpeth all inward hurts, bruises, and wounds, and the ulcers of the lungs, causing the phlegm that oppresseth them to be easily spit forth; it stayeth the defluxions of rheum from the head upon the lungs…
Rose
…Red Roses strengthen the heart, the stomach and the liver, and the retentive faculty; they mitigate the pains that arise from heat, assuage inflammations, procure rest and sleep, stay both whites and reds in women, the gonorrhea, or running of the reins, and fluxes of the belly. The juice of them doth purge and cleanse the body from choler and phlegm.

Extracts and drawings taken from Culpeper’s Herbal Remedies written by Nicholas Culpeper (1616-1654), first published in 1814

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