Family Herbal - Electric Scotland

4 FAMILY HERBAL.
England, but not common. It grows in woods,
and has beauitiful purple and yellow flowers.
It is a foot high, The leaves are oval and
heart-fashioned, deeply indented at the edges,
and of a dusky green. The stalks which produce
the tiowers, are weak, brittle, and generally
crooked; the flowers stand in a kind of vert
loose spike, ten or a dozen upon the top ; they
are small, but very singular and conspicuous ;
they are purple on the back with a red edge, and
yellow in the middle. The root is fibrous and
creeping.
It was an opinion with the old writers, that
this plant produced no tiowers ; but the occa-
sion is easily known. When it stands exposed to
sun, it seldom does (lower ; we see that in gardens
where it is planted in such situations, for it will
stand many years without flowering ; but our
woods favour it, being dark and : damp the old
people saw it in Manner climates, and under an
unfavourable exposure. They called it from this
circumstance, as well as from its virtues, by a
name, which expressed being barren and fruit-
less.
The people in the north give milk in which
the roots have been boiled, to the females of the
domestic animals when they are running after
the males, and they say it has the certain effect
of stopping the natural emotions. Plain sense
leads these sort of people to many things. They
have from this been taught to give it to young women
of robust habits, subject to violent hysteric
complaints, and I am assured with great success ;
they give the decoction of the root made strong
and sweetened. 'Twas a coarse allusion that led
the r. to the practice, but it succeeds in cases that
foil all 'be parade of common practice. It is said
that, if they take it in too large quantity, it reu-