Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

100 FAMILY HERBAL.
The whole is plant to be gathered whe-n beginning
to flower, and dried. A strong decoction of
it is a good restringent. and ; it
styptic stops pur-
even when there are bloody stools ; and
gings,
overflowings of the menses.
Crow-foot. Ranuculus.
A COMMON wild plant. There are several
sorts of it, but the kind used in medicine is that
most common in meadows, and called the common
creeping crowfoot. It grows a foot or more high ;
the stalks are firm, thick, branched, and of a pale
green ; but they seldom stand quite upright. The
leaves on them are few, and divided into narrow
segments ; the flowers are yellow, of the breadth
of a shilling, and of a fine shining colour ; they
stand at the tops of all the branches ; the leaves
which rise from the root are large, divided in a
threefold manner, and often spotted with white.
Some are so rash as to mix a few leaves of this
among salad, but it is very wrong ; the plant is
caustic and poisonous. They are excellent applied
externally in palsies and apoplexies ; for they act
quicker thancantharides in raising blisters, and are
more felt. It is a wonder they are not more used
fur this purpose ; but we are at present so fmid
of foreign medicines, that these things are not
minded.
There are two oilier kinds of crow-foot distinguished
as poisons ; though all of them are, with
some .degree of justice, branded with this name :
but the two most pernicious kinds are that called
spearwort, which has long, narrow, and undivided
leaves ; and that with very small flowers, and leaves
somewhat like the divisions of those of smallage.
These both grow in watry places.