Elizabeth Blackwell's "A Curious Herbal" (1751): 1. The leaves of this plant lie on ye
Groud; the Pedikels or Pipes on which the Flowers grow are about six or eight inches high; and the flowers yellow. The root grows about a Finger thick, and eight inches long, full of a white bitter Milk. 2. It Grows almost everywhere in Fallow Ground and flowers most Months in the year. 3. The Roots and Leaves are used, as cooling, aperative, provoking urine, and strengthening ye stomach, and are much eat as a Sallad in the Spring.
John Hill - "The Family Herbal" (1812):Another of our wild plants too common to need much description. The leaves are very long, somewhat broad, and deeply indented at the edges. The stalks are naked, hollow, green, upright, and six, eight, or ten inches high; one flower stands on each, which is large, yellow, and composed of a great quantity of leaves, and seeds which follow this have a downy matter affixed to them. The whole head of them appears globular. The root is long, large, and white. The whol plany is full of a milky juice, the root most of all. This runs from it when broken, and is bitterish, but not disagreeable.
The root, fresh gathered and boiled, makes an excellent decoction to promote urine, and bring away gravel. The leaves may be eaten as salad when very young, and if taken this way in sufficient quantity, they are good against scurvy.
William Thomas Fernie - "Herbal Simples" (1895): DANDELION - Owing to long years of particular evolutionary sagacity in developing winged seeds wafted from the silky pappus of its ripe flowerheads over wide areas of land, the Dandelion exhibits its handsome golden flowers in every field and on every ground plot throughout the whole of our country. They are to be distinguished from the numerous hawkweeds, by having the outermost leaves of their outer cup bent downwards whilst the stalk is coloured and shining. The plant leaves have jagged edges which resemble the angular jaw of a lion fully supplied with teeth; or, some writers say, the herb has been named from the heraldic lion which is vividly yellow, with teeth of gold-in fact, a dandy lion!
In some of our provinces the herb is known as Swinesnout; whilst again in Devon and Cornwall it is called the Dashelflower. Botanically it belongs to the composite order, and is named Taraxacum Leontodon, or eatable, and lion-toothed. This latter when Latinised is dens leonis, and in French dent de lion. The Dandelion, which is a wild sort of succory, was known to Arabian physicians, since Avicenna of the eleventh century mentions it as taraxacon. It is found throughout Europe, Asia, and North America; possessing a root which abounds with milky juice, and which varies in character according to the season in which the plant is gathered.
During the winter the sap is thick, sweet, and albuminous; but in summer time it is bitter, and acrid. Frost causes the bitterness to diminish, and sweetness to take its place; but after the frost this bitterness returns, and is intensified. The root is at its best for yielding juice about November. Chemically the active ingredients of the herb are "taraxacin" and "taraxacerine," with inulin (a sort of sugar), gluten, gum, albumen, potash, and an odorous resin, which is commonly supposed to stimulate the liver, and the biliary organs. Probably this reputed virtue was assigned at first to the plant largely on the doctrine of signatures, because of its bright yellow flowers of a bilious hue. But skilled medical provers who have experimentally tested the toxical effects of the Dandelion plant have found it to produce, when taken in excess, troublesome indigestion, characterised by a tongue coated with a white skin which peels off in patches, leaving a raw surface, whilst the kidneys become unusually active, with profuse night sweats, and an itching nettle rash. For these several symptoms when occurring of themselves, a combination of the decoction, and the medicinal tincture will be invariably curative.
To make a decoction of the root, one part of this dried and sliced should be gently boiled for fifteen minutes in twenty parts of water, and strained off when cool. It may be sweetened with brown sugar, or honey, if impalatable when taken alone, several teacupfuls being given during the day.
The tops of the roots dug out of the ground, with the tufts of the leaves remaining thereon and blanched by being covered in the earth as they grow, if gathered in the spring, are justly esteemed as an excellent vernal salad. It was with this homely fare the good wise Hecate entertained Theseus, as we read in Evelyn's Acetaria. Bergius says he has seen intractable cases of liver congestion cured, after many other remedies had failed, by the patients taking daily for some months, a broth made from Dandelion roots stewed in boiling water, with leaves of Sorrel, and the yelk [sic] of an egg; though (he adds) they took at the same time cream of tartar to keep their bodies open.
The medicinal tincture of Dandelion is made from the entire plant, gathered in summer, employing proof spirit which dissolves also the resinous parts not soluble in water. From ten to fifteen drops of this tincture may be taken with a spoonful of water three times in the day.
Of the freshly prepared juice, which should not be kept long as it quickly ferments, from two to three teaspoonfuls are a proper dose. The leaves when tender and white in the spring are taken on the Continent in salads, or they are blanched, and eaten with bread and butter, Parkinson says: "Whoso is drawing towards a consumption, or ready to fall into a cachexy, shall find a wonderful help from the use thereof, for some time together." Officially, according to the London College, are prepared from the fresh dried roots collected in the autumn, a decoction (one ounce to a pint of boiling water), a juice, a fresh extract, and an inspissated [i.e. thickened] liquid extract.
Because of its tendency to provoke involuntary urination at night, the Dandelion has acquired a vulgar suggestive appellation which expresses this fact in most homely terms: quasi herba lectiminga, et urinaria dicitur; and this not only in our vernacular, but in most of the European tongues: quia plus lotii in vesica in derivat quam puerulis retineatur prœsertim inter dormiendum.
At Gottingen, the roots are roasted and used instead of coffee by the poorer folk; and in Derbyshire the juice of the stalk is applied to remove warts. The flower of the Dandelion when fully blown is named Priest's Crown (Caput monachi), from the resemblance of its naked receptacle after the winged seeds have been all blown away, to the smooth shorn head of a Roman cleric :-
"The Dandelion this:
A college youth that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of Bishop grave,
And all at once by commutation strange
Becomes a reverend priest: and then how sleek!
How full of grace! with silvery wig at first
So nicely trimmed, which presently grows bald.''
http://www.herbs-info.com/dandelion.htmlIn some of our provinces the herb is known as Swinesnout; whilst again in Devon and Cornwall it is called the Dashelflower. Botanically it belongs to the composite order, and is named Taraxacum Leontodon, or eatable, and lion-toothed. This latter when Latinised is dens leonis, and in French dent de lion. The Dandelion, which is a wild sort of succory, was known to Arabian physicians, since Avicenna of the eleventh century mentions it as taraxacon. It is found throughout Europe, Asia, and North America; possessing a root which abounds with milky juice, and which varies in character according to the season in which the plant is gathered.
During the winter the sap is thick, sweet, and albuminous; but in summer time it is bitter, and acrid. Frost causes the bitterness to diminish, and sweetness to take its place; but after the frost this bitterness returns, and is intensified. The root is at its best for yielding juice about November. Chemically the active ingredients of the herb are "taraxacin" and "taraxacerine," with inulin (a sort of sugar), gluten, gum, albumen, potash, and an odorous resin, which is commonly supposed to stimulate the liver, and the biliary organs. Probably this reputed virtue was assigned at first to the plant largely on the doctrine of signatures, because of its bright yellow flowers of a bilious hue. But skilled medical provers who have experimentally tested the toxical effects of the Dandelion plant have found it to produce, when taken in excess, troublesome indigestion, characterised by a tongue coated with a white skin which peels off in patches, leaving a raw surface, whilst the kidneys become unusually active, with profuse night sweats, and an itching nettle rash. For these several symptoms when occurring of themselves, a combination of the decoction, and the medicinal tincture will be invariably curative.
To make a decoction of the root, one part of this dried and sliced should be gently boiled for fifteen minutes in twenty parts of water, and strained off when cool. It may be sweetened with brown sugar, or honey, if impalatable when taken alone, several teacupfuls being given during the day.
The tops of the roots dug out of the ground, with the tufts of the leaves remaining thereon and blanched by being covered in the earth as they grow, if gathered in the spring, are justly esteemed as an excellent vernal salad. It was with this homely fare the good wise Hecate entertained Theseus, as we read in Evelyn's Acetaria. Bergius says he has seen intractable cases of liver congestion cured, after many other remedies had failed, by the patients taking daily for some months, a broth made from Dandelion roots stewed in boiling water, with leaves of Sorrel, and the yelk [sic] of an egg; though (he adds) they took at the same time cream of tartar to keep their bodies open.
The medicinal tincture of Dandelion is made from the entire plant, gathered in summer, employing proof spirit which dissolves also the resinous parts not soluble in water. From ten to fifteen drops of this tincture may be taken with a spoonful of water three times in the day.
Of the freshly prepared juice, which should not be kept long as it quickly ferments, from two to three teaspoonfuls are a proper dose. The leaves when tender and white in the spring are taken on the Continent in salads, or they are blanched, and eaten with bread and butter, Parkinson says: "Whoso is drawing towards a consumption, or ready to fall into a cachexy, shall find a wonderful help from the use thereof, for some time together." Officially, according to the London College, are prepared from the fresh dried roots collected in the autumn, a decoction (one ounce to a pint of boiling water), a juice, a fresh extract, and an inspissated [i.e. thickened] liquid extract.
Because of its tendency to provoke involuntary urination at night, the Dandelion has acquired a vulgar suggestive appellation which expresses this fact in most homely terms: quasi herba lectiminga, et urinaria dicitur; and this not only in our vernacular, but in most of the European tongues: quia plus lotii in vesica in derivat quam puerulis retineatur prœsertim inter dormiendum.
At Gottingen, the roots are roasted and used instead of coffee by the poorer folk; and in Derbyshire the juice of the stalk is applied to remove warts. The flower of the Dandelion when fully blown is named Priest's Crown (Caput monachi), from the resemblance of its naked receptacle after the winged seeds have been all blown away, to the smooth shorn head of a Roman cleric :-
"The Dandelion this:
A college youth that flashes for a day
All gold: anon he doffs his gaudy suit,
Touched by the magic hand of Bishop grave,
And all at once by commutation strange
Becomes a reverend priest: and then how sleek!
How full of grace! with silvery wig at first
So nicely trimmed, which presently grows bald.''
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