¶ The Place.
Cumin is husbanded and sown in Italy and Spain, and is very common in other hot coun∣tries, as in Aethiopia, Egypt, Cilicia, and all the lesser Asia.
It delights to grow especially in putrified and hot soiles: I haue proued the seeds in my garden, where they haue brought forth ripe seed much fairer and greater than any that commeth from beyond the seas.
¶ The Time.
It is to be sown in the middle of the spring; a shewre of raine presently following doth much hinder the growth thereof, as Ruellius saith.
My selfe did sow it in the midst of May, which sprung vp in six days after: and the seed was ripe in the end of Iuly.
¶ The Names.
It is called in Greeke 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is, tame or garden Cumin, that it may differ from the wilde ones: it is named in Latine Cuminum: in shops, Cyminum: in high-Dutch, 〈◊〉〈◊〉 〈◊〉〈◊〉: in Italian, Comino: in Spanish, Cominchos: in French, Comin: in English, Cumin.
¶ The Temperature.
The seed of garden Cumin, as Galen saith, is hot and dry in the third degree: Dioscorides saith that it hath in it also a binding qualitie.
¶ The Vertues.
The seed of Cumin scattereth and breaketh all the windinesse of the stomacke, belly, guts, and [ A] matrix: it is good against the griping torments, gnawing or fretting of the belly, not onely recei∣ued inwardly by the mouth, but also in clisters, and outwardly applied to the belly with wine and barley meale boyled together to the forme of a pultis.
Being handled according to art, either in a cataplasme, pultis, or plaister, or boyled in wine and [ B] so applied, it taketh away blastings, swellings of the cods or genitors: it consumeth windie swel∣lings in the ioynts, and such like.
Being taken in supping broth it is good for the chest and for cold lungs, and such as are op∣pressed [ C] with aboundance of raw humors.
It stancheth bleeding at the nose, being tempered with vineger and smelt vnto. [ D]
Being quilted in a little bag with some small quantitie of Bay salt, and made hot vpon a bed∣pan [ E] with fire or such like, and sprinkled with good wine vineger, and applied to the side very hot, it taketh away the stitch and paines thereof, and easeth the pleurisie very much.