Rosemary

Today's the day ......................... for a herbal

Nicholas Culpeper (1616 - 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist and astrologer - known for his vices as much as for his virtues.  His 'Complete Herbal', however, is a store of pharmaceutical and herbal knowledge that has endured over time and is still in print today.  Here are a few things that he had to say about the herb - Rosemary  

'..........The dried leaves shred small, and taken in a pipe, as tobacco is taken, helps those that have any cough, phthisic, or consumption, by warming and drying the thin distillations which cause those diseases.

The decoction thereof in wine, helps the cold distillations of rheum into the eyes, and all other cold diseases of the head and brain, as the giddiness or swimmings therein, drowsiness or dullness of the mind and senses like a stupidness, the dumb palsy, or loss of speech, the lethargy, and fallen- sickness, to be both drank, and the temples bathed therewith.

It helps a weak memory, and quickens the senses.

It is a remedy for the windiness in the stomach, bowels, and spleen, and expels it powerfully. It helps those that are liver-grown, by opening the obstructions thereof.

The flowers and conserve made of them are singularly good to comfort the heart, and to expel the contagion of the pestilence; to burn the herb in houses and chambers, corrects the air in them.'

You would have thought that the last bit about 'pestilence' and 'correcting the air in chambers' might come in useful in our present state of affairs ........................?