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Botanical name: Convallaria majalis
Common name: Lily of the Valley
All parts of this perennial wild flower possess medicinal properties.
Used chiefly as a heart remedy, regulating heartbeat and promoting
normal
circulation, particularly after prostrating conditions. Also used as
a tonic to the digestive system, increasing appetite and digestion.
In folk
medicine, used for labor, epilepsy, strokes, and leprosy.
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"It
is under the dominion of Mercury, and therefore it strengthens the
brain, recruits a weak memory, and makes it strong again. The distilled
water dropped into the eyes, helps inflammations there; as also that
infirmity which they call a pin and web. The spirit of the flowers
distilled in wine, restores lost speech, helps the palsy, and is
excellently good in the apoplexy, comforts the heart and vital spirits.
Gerrard saith, that the flowers being close stopped up in a glass,
put into an ant-hill, and taken away again a month after, ye shall
find a liquor in the glass, which, being outwardly applied, helps
the gout."
From The English Physitian (1652) by Nicholas Culpeper
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