Anatomia sambuci, or, The anatomy of the elder cutting out of it plain, approved, and specific remedies for most and chiefest maladies : confirmed and cleared by reason, experience, and history / collected in Latine by Dr. Martin Blochwich ...

V. The Qualities and Vertues.

The Qualities in general are descri∣bed by Galen, lib. 6. Simpl. Medic. facul. sect. That it hath the force of de∣siccating, conglutinating, and dige∣sting moderately; which word for word is repeated by the Galenick Phy∣sician Paulus of Aegian, lib. 7. Medic. ••. 3.

Dioscorides? who, as Galen witnes∣seth, hath of all others written most accurately, most truly, and most learn∣edly of Plants) did long agoe in more proper colours limn them in his fourth Book, and 175 Chapter, of the Matter of Medicine. These are his words.

The faculty and use of both (he meaneth the Elder and Ebulus) is the same in exiccating, and drawing wa∣ter from the belly: They are indeed troublesom to the stomach, neverthe∣less their leaves being boyled as pot∣hearbs, will purge bile and pituite: Their tender stalks being boyled in

pot or pan effect the same. The root being boyled in wine and given in meat, helpeth the Hydroped; yea it helpeth those that are bitten of a Vi∣per, drunk after the same manner. Being boyl'd with water for bathing, it softneth and openeth the vulva, and corrects what enormities are there a∣bouts. The berries thereof drunk with Wine work the same effect. A∣nointed on the hair, they make them black. The recent and tender leaves mitigate inflammations, being with Polent anointed thereon. Their a∣nointing helps burning and the bi∣tings of mad dogs. They conglutinate profound and fustulous ulcers, and helps the guttish, being together with the fat of a Bull or hee Goat anointed.

These vertues so nobilitate the Elder, that if after ages had not found out any, yet they are enough to commend it to us. But as in all other things (as Seneca witnesseth, Quest. Natur. l. 7. c. 31.) Nature doth not at once disco∣ver her mysteries, neither are her se∣crets

promiscously laid open to all, be∣ing withdrawn and shut in her inmost Cabinets, out of which, some in this age, some in another, is received and unfolded. Even so here, one day hath taught another. And the later Phy∣sicians with more intent thoughts, fal∣ling into the contemplation both of other herbs, and of the Elder, they have tryed it in many affections to be most wholsom; so that not undeser∣vedly they esteem it a Panacaea, or All∣heal: For what is given to others a∣part, experience proves together to be in the Elder. That I may say no∣thing of its wondrous and hid opera∣tions in expugning Epilepsies, Plague, Erysipelasses, and other malign affe∣ctions, which shall be spoken of after∣wards: It hath a wonderfull force in purging out of the body all hurtfull, bilous, pituitous, and especially serous humors, from which bud such troops of sicknesses, as is to be seen in that famous and learned Treatise of the in∣genious Piso De serosa Colluvie. Be∣sides

'tis Anodyne, and by rarifying the skin, and digesting the humors and vapours, it lulleth the pain, it pro∣vokes urine, sweat, expelleth the stone, provoketh the stopt flowers, and doth other rarities, according to the parts and preparation thereof. That not without cause, what the more sober and learned Chymists have attribu∣ted to their manifold Medicinal Mer∣cury, Antimony, Vitriol, we may ad∣mit, admire, and acknowledge in our Elder, though I willingly confess with some difference; yea, we are more to admire this, seeing what is got in that Triad of Minerals, is got with such sweat and pains, by those indefatiga∣searchers of the many works and windings of Nature; but we attain our desire in this with light and lit∣tle labour.