Yellow Archangel

Lamium, album, flavus, rubeus. Called also dead nettle, and bee nettle. It grows about hedges, about a foot high, and its leaves are shaped like those of the nettle, but they do not sting.

The stalk is square, and the leaves are hairy. In the white archangel, the flowers are white and large; they stand at the joints, where the leaves issue and are very pretty. The leaves are in pairs. The red archangel has, of course, flowers of a pale reddish colour, the yellow plant is like ale others in the stalks and loaves; except the stalks are rather more straight and erect, and the joints with leaves are farther asunder and the flowers a little larger, of a good yellow colour in some, and rather paler in others. They flower from the beginning of the spring and throughout the summer.

The archangels are used with great success in removing the hardness of the spleen or milt, which is supposed to be the seat of melancholy, etcetera. A decoction is to he made with wine, and the herb applied hot to the region of the spleen, as a plaster; or foment with the decoction.

The flowers of the white archangel are preserved or conserved, and used to stay the whites, and the decoction is good for floodings, bleeding at the nose, and spitting of blood, or any kind of hemorrhage. It is an exhilarating herb, driving away melancholy, and it makes the heart merry. Bruised and mixed with salt, vinegar, and lard, and applied to hard tumours, swellings, or king's evil, it is of great service, it also gives case to the gout, sciatica, and other pains of the joints and sinews.

It is very effectual in the healing of green wounds, bruises and burns. The yellow archangel is the most effectual for old sores and ulcers, though they have become hollow; and to dissolve tumours.