Sage

SAGE (Common Garden)
SALVIA OFFICINALIS
Good for the liver and to breed blood.
A shrubby plant with rough, wrinkled leaves, sometimes green and sometimes reddish purple. The flowers are a blueish-purple.
Where to find it. A common herb in the kitchen garden.
Flowering time: Early to late summer.
Astrology: Jupiter claims it.
Medicinal virtues: A decoction of the leaves and branches provokes the urine, brings down women's courses and expels the dead child. It stays bleeding of wounds, and can be used to cleanse foul ulcers or sores. Three spoonfuls of the juice taken fasting, with a little honey, stops the casting of blood in those with consumption.
To make the pills, take two drams (3.5 g) each of Spikenard and Ginger and eight drams (14 g) of the Sage seed toasted at the fire. Make into a powder and add as much juice of Sage as needed to make into a mass of pills. Take a dram (1.7 g) of them every morning and night, fasting, and drink a little pure water after. They are profitable for pains in the head and joints and they help the falling-sickness, lethargy, lowness of spirits and the palsy.
The juice taken in warm water, helps hoarseness and cough. Drank with vinegar, it is good for the plague. Gargles are made with Sage, Rosemary, Honeysuckle and Plantain boiled in wine or water with honey or Alum added. Sage is boiled with other hot and comforting herbs to bathe the body and the legs in summertime, especially to warm cold joints or sinews, troubled with the palsy and cramp, and to comfort and strengthen the parts.
Modern uses: One of the best remedies for laryngitis, tonsillitis and sore throats. A teaspoonful of the dried leaves are infused in a cup of boiling water and the liquid used as a gargle. Alternatively half the water may be replaced by malt or cider vinegar. This may he taken internally as well as used as a gargle, as may the ordinary infusion.
The infusion sweetened with honey and taken in doses of 2 fl oz (56 ml) is anti-flatulent and mildly laxative. It also stimulates the rnenstrual flow. However, it should not be taken during pregnancy.