Hops

These are so well known that they need no description; I mean the manured kind, which every good husband or housewife is acquainted with.

Descript : The wild hop grows up as the other doth, ramping upon trees or hedges, that stand next to them, with rough branches and leaves like the former, but it gives smaller heads, and in far less plenty than it, so that there is scarcely a head or two seen in a year on divers of this wild kind, wherein consists the chief difference.

Place : They delight to grow in low moist grounds, and are found in all parts of this land.

Time : They spring not until April, and flower not until the latter end of June; the heads are not gathered until the middle or latter end of September.

Government and virtues : It is under the dominion of Mars. 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. The decoction of the tops of Hops, as well of the tame as the wild, works the same effects. In cleansing the blood they help to cure the French diseases, and all manner of scabs, itch, and other breakings-out of the body; as also all tetters, ringworms, and spreading sores, the morphew and all discolouring of the skin. The decoction of the flowers and hops, do help to expel poison that any one hath drank. Half a dram of the seed in powder taken in drink, kills worms in the body, brings down women's courses, and expels urine. 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. Both the wild and the manured are of one property, and alike effectual in all the aforesaid diseases. By all these testimonies beer appears to be better than ale.

Mars owns the plant, and then Dr. Reason will tell you how it performs these actions.