The oil should be applied _immediately_ to any kind of bruise or burn. It will prevent all inflammation and heal the wound. The time to begin making it is when the herbs are in full vigour, which depends much on the season being early; in general the middle of May is about the time, as the rose-buds and lavender would not be ready sooner than the middle of June.
Mrs Milne Home gives the ingredients of the _Tisane de Sept Fleurs_, which, she says, is often prescribed by French doctors for colds and sleeplessness--
“Bouillon blanc. Mullein. Tilleul. Lime. Violette. Violet. Coquelicot. Poppy. Pied de chat. Tussilago. Guimauve. Mallow. Mauve. Another sort of mallow.”
I think Mauve means mallow, Guimauve, marsh-mallow. Beyond these simples that I have mentioned as being in popular use, various English plants and herbs are used not much (if at all) by country people, but by medical men, and a few of those included in the British Pharmacopœia may be remarked on here.
Hops are used in the form of _Infusum Lupuli_. They have long had the reputation of inducing sleep, and George III. slept on a hop-pillow. To prevent the hops crackling (and producing exactly the opposite effect) it is advised that a little alcohol should be sprinkled on them. To eat poppy-seed was thought a safe means of bringing drowsiness. “But,” says Dr Primrose (about 1640), “Opium is now brought into use, the rest [of soporifics] being layd aside. Yet the people doe abhorre from the use thereof and avoyd it as present poyson, when notwithstanding being rightly prepared, and administered in a convenient dose, it is a very harmlesse and wholesome medicament. The Ancients indeed thought it to bee poyson, but that is onely when it is taken in too great a quantity.” One wonders what experiences “the people” went through to learn this terror of the drug! Gerarde and Parkinson both commend it as a medicine that “mitigateth all kinde of paines,” but say that it must be used with great caution. Browne refers to the poppy’s power of soothing.
“Where upon the limber grass Poppy and mandragoras, With like simples not a few Hang for ever drops of dew. Where flows Lèthe without coil, Softly like a stream of oil. Hie thee, thither, gentle Sleep.”