From Culpeper's Complete Herbal
by Nicholas Culpeper
Garden Bazil, or Sweet Bazil
Descript.]
The greater or ordinary Bazil rises up usually with one upright stalk,
diversly branching forth on all sides, with two leaves at every joint,
which are somewhat broad and round, yet pointed, of a pale green
colour, but fresh; a little snipped about the edges, and of a strong
healthy scent. The flowers are small and white, and stand at the tops
of the branches, with two small leaves at the joints, in some places
green, in others brown, after which come black seed. The root perishes
at the approach of Winter, and therefore must be new sown every year.
Place.] It grows in gardens.
Time.] It must be sowed late, and flowers in the heart of Summer, being a very tender plant.
Government and virtues.] This
is the herb which all authors are together by the ears about, and rail
at one another (like lawyers.) Galen and Dioscorides hold it not fit to
be taken inwardly; and Chrysippus rails at it with downright
Billingsgate rhetoric; Pliny, and the Arabian physicians, defend it.
For my own part, I presently found that speech true;
Non nostrium inter
nos tantas componere lites.
And away to Dr. Reason went I, who told me it was an herb of Mars, and under the Scorpion, and
perhaps therefore called Basilicon, and it is no marvel if it carry
a kind of virulent quality with it. Being applied to the place bitten by
venomous beasts, or stung by a wasp or hornet, it speedily draws the
poison to it; Every like draws his like. Mizaldus affirms, that, being laid to rot in horse-dung, it will breed venomous beasts. Hilarius, a French
physician, affirms upon his own knowledge, that an acquaintance of his,
by common smelling to it, had a scorpion bred in his brain. Something
is the matter, this herb and rue will not grow together, no, nor near
one another: and we know rue is as great an enemy to poison as any that
grows.
To conclude: It expels both birth and after-birth; and as it helps the
deficiency of Venus in one kind, so it spoils all her actions in
another. I dare write no more of it.
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