Important: Safety Warning
This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Acute Rheumatism
- The best remedy for this distressing complaint is a plant commonly known by the name of smart-weed. Take a quantity of the leaves of this plant (which may be found in almost any low marshy ground), and wilt them down, a few minutes on a shovel, over a hot fire; then add enough strong vinegar to moisten them thoroughly, and apply a poultice of them, laid on a linen rag, to the parts in which the pain is felt, changing the poultice three times a day. Drink a tea made of the same herb three times a day, and it is almost sure to effect a cure.
Wen.-Burn a quantity of clean linen rags on a pewter dish, then gather the oil from the dish with a little lint, and cover the wen with it three times a day for two weeks, and the wen will drop out without any trouble.