Celebrating the 2015 Herb of the Year-Savories-Part Ten!

A Reprint of Culpeper's Complete Herbal

Well, now that we have Christmas over and done with and my travels to England are complete, I will continue onward and upward about the 2015 Herb of the Year Savory.  I have much more to disclose about savory than the last 6 posts will allow!  I may have to continue into 2016 if permitted.

So continuing down the book shelf, here is a reprint of a classic herbal by Nicholas Culpeper.  In it he states that winter and summer savory are so well known in our gardens, that no description of them is needed!

Under Government and Virtues, he states that "Mercury claims the dominion over this herb, neither is there a better remedy against the colic and iliac passion than this herb; keep it dry by you all the year, if you love yourself and your ease and it is a hundred pounds to a penny if you do not; keep it dry, make conserves and syrups of it for your use, and take notice that the summer kind is the best."

He goes on to say:  "They are both of them hot and dry and especially the summer kind which is both sharp and quick in taste, expelling wind in the stomach and bowels, and is a present help for the rising of the mother procured by wind; provoked urine and women's courses and is much commended for women with child to take inwardly and to smell often unto.  It cureth tough phlegm in the chest and lungs and helpth to expectorate it the more easily.  It quickens the dull spirits in a lethargy, the juice there of being snuffed into the nostrils.  The juice dropped into the eyes cleareth a dull sight if it proceed of thin cold humours distilled from the brain.  The juice heated with oil of roses and dropped into the ears easeth them of the noise and singing in them, and of deafness also.  Outwardly applied with wheat flour as a poultice, it giveth ease to sciatica and palsied members, heating and warming them and taketh away their pains.  It also taketh away the pain that comes by stinging of bees, wasps & c. (whatever & c.) might be!

Many of his cures and remedies came from Gerard or Parkinson.  John Gerard came first and then Parkinson and Culpeper were pretty much contemporaries.  So when you are reading this remember to do careful research.  I am just giving you herbs for thought!  Just be sure of their use before using them as medicinal remedies!  I do have most of a notebook filled from last winter's reading.  So with your permission, even though the 2016 Herb of the Year is capsicum, I may just continue to interject savory posts from time to time!

We had a great Christmas yesterday and now it is gone for another year.  It is still mild and looks like we will have rain starting tonight.  Again no snow!  It is a miracle called El Nino! Hope you are having a great day wherever you may be.  Talk to you tomorrow!