body, we are confronted with a list adapted for most of the ills to which
the flesh is heir. [17] Thus, the walnut was regarded as clearly good for
mental cases from its bearing the signature of the whole head; the
outward green cortex answering to the pericranium, the harder shell
within representing the skull, and the kernel in its figure resembling the
cover of the brain. On this account the outside shell was considered good
for wounds of the head, whilst the bark of the tree was regarded as a
sovereign remedy for the ringworm. [18] Its leaves, too, when bruised
and moistened with vinegar were used for ear-ache. For scrofulous
glands, the knotty tubers attached to the kernel-wort (Scrophularia
nodosa) have been considered efficacious. The pith of the elder, when
pressed with the fingers, "doth pit and receive the impress of them
thereon, as the legs and feet of dropsical persons do," Therefore the juice
of this tree was reckoned a cure for dropsy. Our Lady's thistle (Cardmis
Marianus), from its numerous prickles, was recommended for stitches of
the side; and nettle-tea is still a common remedy with many of our
peasantry for nettle-rash. The leaves of the wood-sorrel (Oxalis
acetosella) were believed to preserve the heart from many diseases, from
their being "broad at the ends, cut in the middle, and sharp towards the
stalk." Similarly the heart-trefoil, or clover (Medicago maculata), was so
called, because, says Coles in his "Art of Simpling," "not only is the leaf
triangular like the heart of a man, but also because each leaf contains the
perfect image of an heart, and that in its proper colour--a flesh colour. It
defendeth the heart against the noisome vapour of the spleen." Another
plant which, on the same principle, was reckoned as a curative for heart-
disease, is the heart's-ease, a term meaning a cordial, as in Sir Walter
Scott's "Antiquary" (chap, xi.), "try a dram to be eilding and claise, and a
supper and heart's-ease into the bargain." The knot-grass (Polygonum
aviculare), with its reddish-white flowers and trailing pointed stems,
was probably so called "from some unrecorded character by the doctrine
of signatures," Suggests Mr. Ellacombe, [19] that it would stop the
growth of children. Thus Shakespeare, in his "Midsummer Night's
Dream" (Act iii. sc. 2), alludes to it as the "hindering knot-grass," and in
Beaumont and Fletcher's "Coxcomb" (Act ii. sc. 2) it is further
mentioned:--
"We want a boy extremely for this function,
Kept under for a year with milk and knot-grass."
According to Crollius, the woody scales of which the cones of the
pine-tree are composed "resemble the fore-teeth;" hence pine-leaves
boiled in vinegar were used as a garlic for the relief of toothache. White-
coral, from its resemblance to the teeth, was also in requisition, because
"it keepeth children to heed their teeth, their gums being rubbed