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BARBERRY
BERBERIS VULGARIS The shrub is so well known by every boy and girl that has but attained the age of seven years, that it needs no description. It is indeed a common garden bush, but also grows wild in Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. It is a large plant with fearsome spiny stems, oval, sharp-toothed leaves and yellow flowers. Where to find it: Scrubland, copses and hedges. Flowering time: Late spring, early summer. Astrology. Mars owns the shrub and presents it to the use of my countrymen to purge their bodies of choler. Medicinal virtues: The inner rind of the Barberry tree boiled in white wine, and a quarter of a pint (142 ml) drunk every morning, is an excellent remedy to cleanse the body of choleric humours, and free it from such diseases as choler causes, such as scabs, itch, tetters, ringworms, yellow jaundice and biles. It is excellent for hot agues, burnings, scaldings, heat of the blood, heat of the liver, bloody flux, for the berries are as good as the bark, and more pleasing. They get a man a good stomach to his victuals. The hair washed with the lye made of ashes of the tree and water, will make it turn yellow. The fruit and rind of the shrub, the flowers of Broom and Heath, or Furze, cleanse the body of choler by sympathy, as the flowers, leaves and bark of the Peach tree do by antipathy. Modern uses: Berberis has antiseptic, tonic and purgative properties. It is used in only small doses. The dosage of the herbal tincture would be no more than a few drops three or four times a day. Herbalists today prescribe it for jaundice, biliousness, diarrhoea, dyspepsia and general liver conditions. It should not be used in pregnancy. |