Take sage, pounded fine, put in milk, sweetened with molasses, to which add a little alum, is good to turn worms.
Rheumatism.—Princes pine, horse-radish, elecampane, wild cherry, mustard seed, a small handful of each; one gill of tar, one pint of brandy; let it stand three days, shaking it often. Dose, two tablespoonsful three times a day.
Hectic Cough.—Take one pint of barley, one pound of turnips, four ounces of elecampane, three quarts of water; boil to one pint, and then add one pound of honey or loaf sugar, and half a pint of brandy; dose, one tablespoonful three times a day.
Canada Thistle—Blows or roots, are good for dysentery and piles.
Sick or Nervous Headache.—Take half a pint of white pine bark, half a pint of hemlock bark, one gill of sassafras bark, taken from the root, one gill black cherry bark; dry these and pulverize them to a powder; put them into two quarts of good brandy, and take a tablespoonful three times a day, thirty minutes before eating.
Motherwort—Is good in all female complaints, trembling at the heart; a few of the leaves, powdered, and a small tablespoonful taken in wine, helps women in travail, and prevents suffocation; it is also good for cramps when females have taken cold.
Thoroughwort.—The leaves of this plant, steeped in rum, is a good remedy for all kinds of bruises; the expressed juice of the leaves, with butternut oil, makes a useful pill; the blows, steeped with leaves of the nervine, make a good vomit.
Nettles—Made into syrup, is good when sweetened with honey, to free the passages of the lungs, which is the cause of phthisic, and is also good for swelling of the almond of the throat; cleanses and helps the palate, heals inflammation, soreness of the mouth and throat; steeped in wine, it will assist those about to be confined, and help prevent all diseases arising therefrom. In severe colds, grind the tops and roots together, and mix with gum mastic, to be applied outwardly. The seed is good for worms; a strong tea made of it, and taken frequently, is good for the gravel; as a wash it is excellent for wounds, bruises, burns, and will relieve the skin from leprosy. The seeds and leaves, pulverized, and rubbed into the nose, will cure the polypus. An ointment made of the juice, neatsfoot oil, or hen’s oil, and beeswax, is good to rub cold and benumbed limbs. Take a handful of the leaves, and the same of walnut leaves, pound to a pulp, and apply as a poultice in rheumatic effections. The mashed leaves are good to stop flooding.
Ground Moss—Is a first rate cure for gravel, as it dissolves and carries it away with the urine. It grows in shady places, at the bottom of hollows. Boiled in water, it is good in inflammations, and cures the gout and rheumatism.
Tree mosses are cooling and binding, partaking of a mollifying quality. Each moss partakes of the nature of the tree on which it grows: that which grows on the oak is the most binding, and is good for fluxes, puking, and bleeding; powder them, and, taken in wine, good in profuse flowing. As a tea, good for dropsy; steeped in vinegar, good for headache caused by heat; used in ointment, good for shrunk sinews.