our
times a day with a tablespoonful of cold water. French nurses treat
cracked nipples by applying a hollow section of the fresh root over
the sore caruncle; and a decoction of the root made by boiling
from two to four drachms in a pint of water, is given for bleedings
from the lungs or bladder.

The name _Consound_, owned by the Common Comfrey, was given
likewise to the daisy and the bugle, in the middle ages. "It
joyeth," says Gerard, "in watery ditches, in fat and fruitful
meadows." A solve concocted from the fresh herb will certainly
tend to promote the healing of bruised and broken parts,
suggesting as an appropriate motto for the salve box: "Behold how
good and pleasant a thing it is to dwell together in unity! It is
like the precious ointment which ran down Aaron's beard." Some
foreknowledge [122] of the Comfrey perhaps inspired the Prophet
Isaiah to predict that after a time "the heart should rejoice and the
bones flourish like a herb." The Poet Laureate tells of

"This, the Consound,
Whereby the lungs are eased of their grief."

About a century ago, the _Prickly Comfrey_--a variety of our
Consound--was naturalised in this country from the Caucasus, and
has since proved itself amazingly productive to farmers, as, when
cultivated, it will grow six crops in the year; and the plant is both
preventive and curative of foot and mouth disease in cattle. It
bears flowers of a rich blue colour.

From our Common Comfrey a sort of glue is got in Angora, which
is used for spinning the famous fleeces of that country. Mr.
Cockayne relates that the locksman at Teddington informed him
how the bone of his little finger being broken, was grinding and
grunching so sadly for two months, that sometimes he felt quite
wrong in his head. One day he saw a doctor go by, and told him
about the distress. The doctor said: "You see that Comfrey
growing there? Take a piece of its root, and champ it, and put it
about your finger, and wrap it up." The man did so, and in four
days his finger was well.

CORIANDER.

Coriander comfits, sold by the confectioner as admirably warming
to the stomach, and corrective of flatulence, consist of small
aromatic seeds coated with white sugar. These are produced by the
Coriander, an umbelliferous herb cultivated in England from early
times for medicinal and culinary uses, though introduced at first
from the Mediterranean. It has now [123] become wild as an
escape, growing freely