Barley

THE continual usefulness hereof hath made all in general so acquainted herewith that it is altogether needless to describe it, several kinds hereof plentifully growing, being yearly sown in this land. The virtues thereof take as follow.

Government and virtues : It is a notable plant of Saturn: if you view diligently its effects by sympathy and antipathy, you may easily perceive a reason of them, as also why barley bread is so unwholesome for melancholy people. Barley in all the parts and compositions thereof (except malt) is more cooling than wheat, and a little cleansing. 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. A poultice made of barley meal or flour boiled in vinegar and honey, and a few dry figs put into them, dissolves all imposthumes, and assuages inflammations, being thereto applied. And being boiled with melilot and camomile-flowers, and some linseed, fenugreek, and rue in powder, and applied warm, it eases pains in side and stomach, and windiness of the spleen. The meal of barley and fleawort boiled in water, and made a poultice with honey and oil of lilies applied warm, cures swellings under the ears, throat, neck, and such like; and a plaister made thereof with tar, with sharp vinegar into a poultice, and laid on hot, helps the leprosy; being boiled in red wine with pomegranate rinds and myrtles, stays the lask or other flux of the belly; boiled with vinegar and quince, it eases the pains of the gout; barley-flour, white salt, honey, and vinegar mingled together, takes away the itch speedily and certainly. The water distilled from the green barley in the end of May, is very good for those that have defluctions of humours fallen into their eyes, and eases the pain, being dropped into them; or white bread steeped therein, and bound on the eyes, does the same.