The Black Thorn, or Sloe-Bush

It is so well known, that it needs no description.

Place : It grows in every country in the hedges and borders of fields.

Time : It flowers in April, and sometimes in March, but the fruit ripens after all other plums whatsoever, and is not fit to be eaten until the Autumn frost mellow them.

Government and virtues : All the parts of the Sloe-Bush are binding, cooling, and dry, and all effectual to stay bleeding at the nose and mouth, or any other place; the lask of the belly or stomach, or the bloody flux, the too much abounding of women's courses, and helps to ease the pains of the sides, and bowels, that come by overmuch scouring, to drink the decoction of the bark of the roots, or more usually the decoction of the berries, either fresh or dried. The conserve also is of very much use, and more familiarly taken for the purposes aforesaid. But the distilled water of the flower first steeped in sack for a night, and drawn therefrom by the heat of Balneum and Anglico, a bath, is a most certain remedy, tried and approved, to ease all manner of gnawings in the stomach, the sides and bowels, or any griping pains in any of them, to drink a small quantity when the extremity of pain is upon them. The leaves also are good to make lotions to gargle and wash the mouth and throat, wherein are swellings, sores, or kernels; and to stay the defluctions of rheum to the eyes, or other parts; as also to cool the heat and inflammations of them, and ease hot pains of the head, to bathe the forehead and temples therewith. The simple distilled water of the flowers is very effectual for the said purposes, and the condensate juice of the Sloes. The distilled water of the green berries is used also for the said effects.