SOPEWORT, OR BRUISEWORT.
Descript.] The roots creep under ground far and near, with many joints therein, of a brown colour on the outside and yellowish within, shooting forth in divers places weak round stalks, full of joints, set with two leaves a-piece at every one of them on a contrary side, which are ribbed somewhat like to plantain, and fashioned like the common field white campion leaves, seldom having any branches from the sides of the stalks, but set with flowers at the top, standing in long husks like the wild campions, made of five leaves a-piece, round at the ends, and dented in the middle, of a rose colour, almost white, sometimes deeper, sometimes paler; of a reasonable scent.
Place.] It grows wild in many low and wet grounds of this land, by brooks and the sides of running waters.
Time.] It flowers usually in July, and so continues all August, and part of September, before they be quite spent.
Government and virtues.] Venus owns it. The country people in divers places do use to bruise the leaves of Sopewort, and lay it to their fingers, hands or legs, when they are cut, to heal them up again. Some make great boast thereof, that it is diuretical to provoke urine, and thereby to expel gravel and the stone in the reins or kidneys, and do also account it singularly good to void hydropical waters: and they no less extol it to perform an absolute cure in the French pox, more than either sarsaparilla, guiacum, or China can do; which, how true it is, I leave others to judge.
SORREL.
Our ordinary Sorrel, which grows in gardens, and also wild in the fields, is so well known, that it needs no description.
Government and virtues.] It is under the dominion of Venus. Sorrel is prevalent in all hot diseases, to cool any inflammation and heat of blood in agues pestilential or choleric, or sickness and fainting, arising from heat, and to refresh the overspent spirits with the violence of furious or fiery fits of agues; to quench thirst, and procure an appetite in fainting or decaying stomachs: For it resists the putrefaction of the blood, kills worms, and is a cordial to the heart, which the seed doth more effectually, being more drying and binding, and thereby stays the hot fluxes of women’s courses, or of humours in the bloody flux, or flux of the stomach. The root also in a decoction, or in powder, is effectual for all the said purposes. Both roots and seeds, as well as the herb, are held powerful to resist the poison of the scorpion. The decoction of the roots is taken to help the jaundice, and to expel the gravel and the stone in the reins or kidneys. The decoction of the flowers made with wine and drank, helps the black jaundice, as also the inward ulcers of the body and bowels. A syrup made with the juice of Sorrel and fumitory, is a sovereign help to kill those sharp humours that cause the itch. The juice thereof, with a little vinegar, serves well to be used outwardly for the same cause, and is also profitable for tetters, ringworms, &c. It helps also to discuss the kernels in the throat; and the juice gargled in the mouth, helps the sores therein. The leaves wrapt in a colewort leaf and roasted in the embers, and applied to a hard imposthume, botch, boil, or plague sore, doth both ripen and break it. The distilled water of the herb is of much good use for all the purposes aforesaid.