The united vessel of their blood,
Mingled with venom of suggestion,
As, for a purpose, the age will pour it in,
Shall never leak, though it do work as strong
As aconitum or rash gunpowder.”[22]
The aconite or monkshood, formerly called wolf’s bane, gives us one of the most powerful vegetable poisons, its properties having long been known and employed in medical practice. It was used by the early Greeks and Romans, and is probably even of still greater antiquity. On account of its rapid and deadly action, Shakespeare compares it to gunpowder. Some commentators are of the opinion that aconite was the poison sold by the apothecary to the lovesick Romeo.
A curious old tradition is alluded to by Falstaff when speaking of the chamomile, in the following sentence:—
“Though the camomile, the more it is trodden on the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears”.[23]
The chamomile has an ancient reputation for its medicinal properties as a stomachic and febrifuge.
Its growth is said to be improved by being pressed or trampled into the earth.