Charms, Spells, and Curses. V. J. Banis
plant, if it is infused in wine, prevents retention of the urine. If the seed of the marshmallow plant is pounded and kneaded into an ointment, this can be rubbed over the face and hands to insure against the stings of bees and wasps.
Royal comfrey, a plant of the genus Symphytum, is useful in bringing stillborn children from the womb. It will remove films from the eyes as well, if used in compresses. Royal comfrey is helpful to bones and ulcers, and its leaves are potent against inflammation.
Anet stalks can be cooked in oil and applied to the head to deliver one from insomnia.
Dill water is excellent for use in children’s complaints, as flatulence.
To remove herpes (shingles) and other skin eruptions, one should grind leeks and mix with barley flour and oil.
If one is troubled with ulcers on feet and legs, plantain leaves will solve this, if they are pounded and applied as a poultice. To stop dysentery, pulverize seeds of plantain in wine, or preserve the leaves in vinegar. To cure dropsy, eat raw plantain leaves after dry bread, without taking a drink. The root of the fresh water plantain, when infused in wine, is useful in neutralizing opium poisoning and other narcotic effects.
Viburnum leaves in red wine are a certain cure for epilepsy. Also, for convulsions and spasms, viburnum or cramp bark is used.
Some women after giving birth are troubled by insatiable hunger. This can be easily remedied by pounding the leaves and tendrils of grape vines into a poultice which is applied to the stomach.
The grapestone can be roasted and pulverized and applied in poultice for the cure of dysentery.
Wormwood, cooked in wine and taken in small dosages, saves women from the danger of miscarriage.
Fumigations of wormwood boiled and taken in a hip bath will deliver a woman of a stillborn child.
Nettle seeds are effective against pleurisy and lung inflammations, for which they should be cooked in wine. The leaves of the nettle may also be pounded and applied to sores and wounds for the prevention of gangrene and to aid healing. If one suffers from mushroom poisoning, a decoction of the seeds of the nettle plant is advised.
A little nitre mixed with oil is effective against poisoning, especially mushroom poisoning.
Nettle seeds should be mixed with honey and sucked for goiter and for consumption.
Nettle has many outstanding properties. It is famed for sweetening the breath. Also, if one will hold a nettle stalk in his hand and a milfoil stalk which has been picked while the sun was passing through the Lion, he will be made completely impervious to fear. For gathering fish, a fine bait can be made from nettle juice and juice of snake root; when the hand is anointed with the blend and plunged into a body of water, it will attract whole schools of fishes, which can be easily captured.
For henbane poisoning, take the juice of the purslane, a plant of the family Portulacaceae, with a sweet wine.
Angelica in wine is a good cure for interior ulceration. If this plant is reduced to a powder, a pinch of it swallowed with wine before breakfast in the winter will guard one from winter epidemics. In the summer, the powder should be taken with rosewater to preserve from ills of that season.
For ulcers of the lung, an infusion of thistles is used. If the thistle root be powdered fine and applied it will cure ulcers of the breast.
Aloe juice with vinegar will invariably cure falling hair. Rosemary, southernwood, and citric acid are also prescribed for falling hair.
Chewed raw, purslane cures mouth ulcers. The seeds of the purslane, when crushed and eaten with honey, are effective against asthma.
Raspberry leaves are effective in treating mouth ulcers.
Angelica leaves, pulverized with rue and honey, will prevent rabies when applied to dog bites.
Agnus castus in a strong decoction will work to preserve chastity; moreover, with smallage and sage in salt water it results in a liniment for the back of the head which will restore those who have been in a coma.
To be completely safe from vipers or any venomous reptile, one need wear a belt of juniper, leeks, or verbena stalks.
It is most dangerous to the health of a woman if she accidentally suppress her monthly flows. If this happens, she must be made to take up her cycle again by heavy doses of fresh parsley-leaf tea.
If the monthly cycle is overdue, a woman must take finely chopped agrimony, feverfew, and parsley, which are mixed with oatmeal grits and all cooked with fresh pork. Only the liquid is to be drunk and the meat must be promptly thrown away and not allowed to linger in the brew.
Dissolve in the mouth three grains of sea salt and spread this over the teeth and gums with the tongue; the teeth will never decay if this is done each morning regularly.
For a pimply face, boil tobacco leaves and apply as a lotion. Echinacia is effective also.
For hemorrhage of the uterus, get seven oranges and stew their skins in three pints of water until there is only one pint of liquid left. Toss in a handful or two of sweet sugar. Take twelve spoonfuls of this three or four times each day.
Barberry is good against piles and liver difficulties. The root of this plant, or of the sorrel or the plantane, when worn around the neck, will cure scrofula and scrofulous tumors.
The elder plant, especially the flowers, will reduce inflammation; elder flowers mixed with honey and rye flour will cure erysipelas.
A cure for erysipelas is this: Take two ounces of the oil of roses and mix well together with three ounces of oil of water lilies and five ounces of warm milk, either goat or cow.
Cucumber is excellent against freckles and skin blotches.
If one is troubled by complexion, especially blotches or patches of redness, this is what to do. Take the gall of a cow and mix this with eggshells which have first been dissolved in vinegar.
There is a certain cure for unpleasant complexion which if followed will do the job. Goose droppings are to be soaked in wine. Every day for nine days a dose about the size of a walnut must be taken. This will also end jaundice.
Erotic dreams may have a debilitating effect. To be rid of them one must take a sheet of lead and cut it in the form of a cross, which is to be laid on the stomach.
People have been known to choke on fishbones, which can be very dangerous. The best thing to do if this should happen is to put your feet in a bowl of cold water. If bread crumbs stick in the throat, stuff the ears with the very same bread and there will be results.
The pains of childbirth can be reduced and even eliminated if one will take eagle’s droppings and reduce them to powder, which is burnt over glowing embers to procure a fumigation. Another remedy is one ounce of raspberry leaf steeped in a pint of water; take this tea very often in large quantities after the first six months.
If one desires to make the hair grow, or to give the hair new life, he must roast bees. Take the ashes that result and mix these with mouse droppings. Infuse this blend in oil of roses. Now add the ash of roasted chestnuts, or roasted beans will do. Whatever part of the body you anoint with this, hair will grow there.
For dysentery or dropsy, goat’s blood should be heated and drunk. For jaundice, take the gall of a goat, mix with honey and apply as an ointment. The gall of the goat dried and put on the stomach will cure or prevent inflammation there. For dysentery, roast a goat’s head.
This is how you will cure a dropsical person without fail: Collect the droppings of a little unweaned dog and dry these and powder them. For nine days have the patient swallow this in any beverage, especially in wine. But if this is to work, the patient must not know the nature of this cure or it will lose its power.
You will bring a dead child from the womb if you apply to the stomach an ointment made from the juice of leeks, the fat of a he-goat, and the gall of a hare.
Liver ailments are best cured by taking a wolf’s liver, which has been dried and crushed, in Madeira wine.