Vertues and use.
The Garden Poppy Heads with Seeds made into a Syrup, is frequently and to good effect used to procure rest and sleep in the sick and weak, and to stay Catarrh's and Defluxions of hot thin Rhewms from the Head into the Stomach, and upon the Lungs, causing a con∣tinual Cough, the Fore-runner of a Consump∣tion. It helpeth also Hoarsness of the Throat, and when one hath lost their voice, which the Oyl of the Seed doth likewise. The black Seed boyled in Wine and drunk; is said also to stay the Flux of the Belly and Womens Courses. The empty thels of the Poppy Heads are usu∣ally boyled in water and given to procure rest and sleep; so do the Leavs in the same man∣ner; as also if the Head and Temples be ba∣thed with the Decoction warm, or with the Oyl of Poppies, the green Leaves or Heads bruised and applied with a little Vinegar, or made into a Pultis with Barley Meal, or Hogs Greas, it cooleth and tempereth al Inflamati∣ons, as also the Diseas called St. Anthonies Fire. It is generally used in Treacle and Me∣thridate, and in all other Medicines that are made to procure rest and sleep,* 1.1 and to eas pains in the Head as well as in other parts; It is also used to cool Inflamations, Agues, or Phrensies, and to stay Defluxions which caus a Cough or Consumption: and also other Flu∣xes of the Belly, or Womens Courses; It is also put into hollow Teeth to eas the pain, and hath been found by experience to eas the pain of the Gout.
The Wild Poppy, or Corn Rose (as Ma∣thiolus saith) is good to prevent the Falling∣sickness.* 1.2 The Syrup made with the Flowers is with good effect given to those that have the Pluresie; and the dried Flowers also, ei∣ther boyled in water, or made into Pouder and drunk either in the Distilled Water of them, or in some other Drink worketh the like effect. The Distilled Water of the Flowers, is held to be of much good use against Surfets, being drunk evening and morning; It is also more cooling than any of the other Poppies, and therefore cannot but be as effectual in hot Agues, Phrensies, and other Inflamations ei∣ther inward or outward, the Syrup or Water to be used therein, or the green Leavs used out∣wardly, either in an Oyntment, as it is in Populeon, a cooling Oyntment, or any other wales applied. Galen saith the Seed is dange∣rous to be used inwardly.
The Herb is Lunar, and of the Juyce of it is made Opium, only for lucre of Money they cheat you, and tell you 'tis a kind of Tear, or some such like thing that drops from Poppies when they weep, and that is some where be∣yond the Sea, I know not where, beyond the Moon.