Yarrow
Common Name: yarrow
Botanical Name: Achillea millefolium
Native Range: Europe, western Asia, North America
A description of yarrow in The Herball, or Generall Historie of Plantes by John Gerard, 1636:
The leaves of Yarrow do close up wounds, and keep them from inflammation, or fiery swelling: it stanches blood in any part of the body, and it likewise put into baths for women to fit in: it stops the leaks, and being drunk it helps the bloody flix.
Most men say the leaves chewed, and especially green are a remedy for the tooth-ache.
The leaves being put into the nose, do cause it to bleed, and ease the pain of the migraine.
It cures the inward excoriations of the yard of a man, coming by reason of pollutions or extreme flowing of the seed, although the issue does cause inflammation and swelling of those secret parts, and though the spermatic matter do come down in great quantity, if the juice be infected with a syringe, or decoction. This has been proven by a certain friend of mine, sometimes a Fellow of Kings College in Cambridge, who lightly bruised the leaves of common Yarrow, with Hogs-grease, and applied it warm unto the private parts, and thereby did divers times help himself, and others of his fellows, when he was a student and a single man living in Cambridge. One dram in powder of the herb given in wine, presently taketh away the pains of the colic.
Last updated: 3/10/2020