or five
drops of the tincture should be taken for a dose with a tablespoonful
of cold water, three or four times in the day; and linen rags soaked
in a lotion made with a teaspoonful of the tincture added to half a
tumblerful of cold water, should be kept applied over the affected
part.

It equally relieves whitlows; and will heal punctured wounds, if
arnica, or the Marigold, or St. John's Wort is not indicated, or of
use. When tested by provers in large doses, it has caused a
widespread eruption of [475] eczema, with itching and tingling of
the whole skin, extending into the mouth and air passages, and
occasioning a violent spasmodic cough. Hence, one may fairly
assume (and this has been found to hold good), that a gouty,
spasmodic cough of the bronchial tubes, attended with gouty
eczema, and with pains in the smaller joints, will be generally cured
by tincture or infusion of the Wild Rosemary in small doses of a
diluted strength, given several times a day, the diet at the same time
being properly regulated. Formerly this herb was used in Germany
for making beer heady; but it is now forbidden by law.

RUE.

The wild Rue is found on the hills of Lancashire and Yorkshire,
being more vehement in smell and in operation than the garden Rue.
This latter, _Ruta graveolens,_ (powerfully redolent), the common
cultivated Rue of our kitchen gardens, is a shrub with a pungent
aromatic odour, and a bitter, hot, penetrating taste, having leaves of
a bluish-green colour, and remaining verdant all the year round. It is
first mentioned as cultivated in England by Turner, in his _Herbal_,
1562, and has since become one of the best known and most widely
grown Simples for medicinal and homely uses. The name _Ruta_ is
from the Greek _reuo_, to set free, because this herb is so efficacious
in various diseases. The Greeks regarded Rue as an anti-magical
herb, since it served to remedy the nervous indigestion and
flatulence from which they suffered when eating before strangers:
which infirmity they attributed to witchcraft. This herb was further
termed of old "Serving men's joy," because of the multiplicity of
common ailments which it was warranted to cure. It constituted a
chief ingredient of the famous antidote of Mithridates to poisons,
the formula of which [476] was found by Pompey in the satchel of
the conquered King. The leaves are so acrid, that if they be much
handled they inflame the skin; and the wild plant possesses this