Vertues and use.
This is the Herb which all Authors are to∣gether by the Ears about, and rail at one ano∣ther like Lawyers: Galen and Diascoride hold it not fitting to be taken inwardly: and Chrysippus rails at it with downright Billings∣gate-Rhetorick. Fliny, and the Arabian Phy∣sitians defend it.
For mine own part I presently found that Speech true;
Non nostrum inter nos tantas-compon••re lites.
And away to Dr Reason went I, who told me it was an Herb of Mars, and under the Scorpion, and perhaps therfore called Basili∣con, and then no mervail if it carry a kind of virulent quality with it: Being applied to the place bitten by a venemous Beast, or stung by a Wasp or Horner,* 1.1 it speedily draws the Poyson to it; Every like draws his like. Myzal••us affirms, That it being laid to rot in Horsdung it wil breed Venemous Beasts. And Hollerius a French Physitian affirms upon his own know∣ledg, That an acquaintance of his by common smelling to it, had a Scorpion bred in his Brain. Somthing is the matter this Herb and Rue wil not grow together, no, nor near one another: And we know Rue is as great an enemy to Poy∣son as any grows.
To conclude: It expelleth both Birth, and After-birth; and as it helps the deficiency of Venus in one kind, so it spoils al her actions in another. I date write no more of it.