formerly in Anglo-Saxon
Ever-fern, or Boar-fern. In Germany it is said to have sprung
from the Virgin's milk, and is named _Marie bregue_. The fresh root
has been used successfully in decoction, or powdered, for
melancholia; [190] also of late for general rheumatic swelling of the
joints. By the ancients it was employed as a purgative. Six drachms
by weight of the root should be infused for two hours in a pint of
boiling water, and given in two doses. This is the Oak Fern of the
herbalists; not that of modern botanists (_Polypodium dryopteris_);
it being held that such Fern plants as grew upon the roots of an oak
tree were of special medicinal powers, _Quod nascit super radices
quercus est efficacius_. The true Oak Fern (_Dryopteris_) grows
chiefly in mountainous districts among the mossy roots of old oak
trees, and sometimes in marshy places. If its root is bruised and
applied to the skin of any hairy part, whilst the person is sweating,
this will cause the hair to come away. Dioscorides said, "The root of
Polypody is very good for chaps between the fingers." "It serveth,"
writes Gerard, "to make the belly soluble, being boiled in the broth
of an old cock, with beets or mallows, or other like things, that
move to the stool by their slipperiness." Parkinson says: "A dram or
two, it need be, of the powdered dry roots taken fasting, in a cupful
of honeyed water, worketh gently as a purge, being a safe medicine,
fit for all persons and seasons, which daily experience confirmeth."
"Applied also to the nose it cureth the disease called polypus, which
by time and sufferance stoppeth the nostrils." The leaves of the
Polypody when burnt furnish a large proportion of carbonate of
Potash.

The Spleenwort (_Asplenium ceterach_--an Arabian term), or Scaly
Fern, or Finger Fern, grows on old walls, and in the clefts of moist
rocks. It is also called "Miltwaste," because supposed to cure
disorders of the milt, or spleen:--

"The Finger Fern, which being given to swine,
It makes their milt to melt away in fine."

[191] Very probably this reputed virtue has mainly become attributed
to the plant, because the lobular milt-like shape of its leaf
resembles the form of the spleen. "No herbe maie be compared
therewith," says one of the oldest Herbals, "for his singular virtue to
help the sicknesse or grief of the splene." Pliny ordered: "It should
not be given to women, because it bringeth barrenness." Vitruvius
alleged that i