Thereupon, tradition says, he administered the juice of this life-giving plant to his fair lady-love, who “arose and blessed the bestower for the return of health.”  Water in which peas have been boiled is given for measles, and a Lincolnshire recipe for cramp is cork worn on the person.  A popular cure for ringworm in Scotland is a decoction of sun-spurge (Euphorbia helioscopia), or, as it is locally termed, “mare’s milk.”  In the West of England to bite the first fern seen in spring is an antidote for toothache, and in certain parts of Scotland the root of the yellow iris chopped up and chewed is said to afford relief.  Some, again, recommend a double hazel-nut to be carried in the pocket, [22] and the elder, as a Danish cure, has already been noticed.

Various plants were, in days gone by, used for the bites of mad dogs and to cure hydrophobia.  Angelica, madworts, and several forms of lichens were favourite remedies.  The root of balaustrium, with storax, cypress-nuts, soot, olive-oil, and wine was the receipt, according to Bonaventura, of Cardinal Richelieu.  Among other popular remedies were beetroot, box leaves, cabbage, cucumbers, black currants, digitalis, and euphorbia. [23] A Russian remedy was Genista sentoria, and in Greece rose-leaves were used internally and externally as a poultice.  Horse-radish, crane’s-bill, strawberry, and herb-gerard are old remedies for gout, and in Westphalia apple-juice mixed with saffron is administered for jaundice; while an old remedy for boils is dock-tea.  For ague, cinquefoil and yarrow were recommended, and tansy leaves are worn in the shoe by the Sussex peasantry; and in some places common groundsel has been much used as a charm.  Angelica was in olden times used as an antidote for poisons.  The juice of the arum was considered good for the plague, and Gerarde tells us that Henry VIII. was, “wont to drink the distilled water of broom-flowers against surfeits and diseases thereof arising.”  An Irish recipe for sore-throat is a cabbage leaf tied round the throat, and the juice of cabbage taken with honey was formerly given as a cure for hoarseness or loss of voice. [24] Agrimony, too, was once in repute for sore throats, cancers, and ulcers; and as far back as the time of Pliny the almond was given as a remedy for inebriety.  For rheumatism the burdock was in request, and many of our peasantry keep a potato in their pocket as charms, some, again, carrying a chestnut, either begged or stolen.  As an antidote for fevers the carnation was prescribed, and the cowslip, and the hop, have the reputation of inducing sleep.  The dittany and plantain, like the golden-rod, nicknamed “wound-weed,” have been used for the healing of wounds, and the application of a dock-leaf for the sting of a nettle is a well-known cure among our peasantry, having been embodied in the old familiar adage:—­

“Nettle out, dock in—­
Dock remove the nettle-sting,”

Of which there are several versions; as in Wiltshire, where the child uses this formula:—­