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Descript : The stalks are slender, and shorter than the common Wormwood by one foot at least; the leaves are more finely cut and divided than they are, but something smaller; both leaves and stalks are hoary, the flowers of a pale yellow colour; it is altogether like the common Wormwood, save only in bigness, for it is smaller; in taste, for it is not so bitter; in smell, for it is spicy. Place : It grows upon the tops of the mountains (it seems 'tis aspiring) there 'tis natural, but usually nursed up in gardens for the use of the apothecaries in London. Time : All Wormwoods usually flower in August, a little sooner or later. Government and virtues : Will you give me leave to be critical a little? I must take leave. Wormwood is an herb of Mars, and if Pontanus say otherwise, he is beside the bridge; I prove it thus: What delights in martial places, is a martial herb; but Wormwood delights in martial places (for about forges and iron works you may gather a cart-load of it,) ergo, it is a martial herb. It is hot and dry in the first degree, viz. just as hot as your blood, and no hotter. It remedies the evils choler can inflict on the body of man by sympathy. It helps the evils Venus and the wanton Boy produce, by antipathy; and it doth something else besides. It cleanses the body of choler (who dares say Mars doth no good?) It provokes urine, helps surfeits, or swellings in the belly: it causes appetite to meat, because Mars rules the attractive faculty in man. The sun never shone upon a better herb for the yellow jaundice than this. Why should men cry out so much upon Mars for an infortunate, (or Saturn either?) Did God make creatures to do the creation a mischief? This herb testifies, that Mars is willing to cure all diseases he causes; the truth is, Mars loves no cowards, nor Saturn fools, nor I neither. Take of the flowers of Wormwood, Rosemary, and Black Thorn, of each a like quantity, half that quantity of saffron; boil this in Rhenish wine, but put it not in saffron till it is almost boiled. This is the way to keep a man's body in health, appointed by Camerarius, in his book intitled Hortus Medicus, and it is a good one too. Besides all this, Wormwood provokes the terms. I would willingly teach astrologers, and make them physicians (if I knew how) for they are most fitting for the calling; if you will not believe me, ask Dr. Hippocrates, and Dr. Galen, a couple of gentlemen that our college of physicians keep to vapour with, not to follow. In this our herb, I shall give the pattern of a ruler, the sons of art rough cast, yet as near the truth as the men of Benjamin could throw a stone. Whereby, my brethren, the astrologers may know by a penny how a shilling is coined. As for the college of physicians, they are too stately to college or too proud to continue. They say a mouse is under the dominion of the Moon, and that is the reason they feed in the night; the house of the Moon is Cancer; rats are of the same nature with mice, but they are a little bigger; Mars receives his fall in Cancer, ergo, Wormwood being an herb of Mars, is a present remedy for the biting of rats and mice. Mushrooms (I cannot give them the title of Herba, Frutex, or Arbor) are under the dominion of Saturn, (and take one time with another, they do as much harm as good;) if any have poisoned himself by eating them, Wormwood, an herb of Mars, cures him, because Mars is exalted in Capricorn, the house of Saturn, and this it doth by sympathy, as it did the other by antipathy. Wheals, pushes, black and blue spots, coming either by bruises or beatings. Wormwood, an herb of Mars, helps, because Mars, (as bad you love him, and as you hate him) will not break your head, but he will give you a plaister. If he do but teach you to know yourselves, his courtesy is greater than his discourtesy. The greatest antipathy between the planets, is between Mars and Venus: one is hot, the other cold; one diurnal, the other nocturnal; one dry, the other moist; their houses are opposite, one masculine, the other feminine; one public, the other private; one is valiant, the other effeminate: one loves the light, the other hates it; one loves the field, the other sheets: then the throat is under Venus, the quinsy lies in the throat, and is an inflammation there; Venus rules the throat, (it being under Tamus her sign.) Mars eradicates all diseases in the throat by his herbs (for wormwood is one) and sends them to Egypt on an errand never to return more, this done by antipathy. The eyes are under the Luminaries; the right eye of a man, and the left eye of a woman the Sun claims dominion over: the left eye of a man, and the right eye of a woman, are privileges of the Moon, Wormwood, an herb of Mars cures both; what belongs to the Sun by sympathy, because he is exalted in his house; but what belongs to the Moon by antipathy, because he hath his fall in her's. Suppose a man be bitten or stung by a martial creature, imagine a wasp, a hornet, a scorpion, Wormwood, an herb of Mars, gives you a present cure; that Mars, choleric as he is, hath learned that patience, to pass by your evil speeches of him, and tells you by my pen, That he gives you no affliction, |
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