"What savour is better, if physic be true,
For places infected, than wormwood and rue."
The infusion of Wormwood makes a useful fomentation for inflammatory
pains, and, combined with chamomile flowers and bay leaves,
it formed the anodyne fomentation of the earlier dispensatories.
This infusion, with a few drops of the essential oil of Wormwood,
will serve [356] as an astringent wash to prevent the hair
from falling off when it is weak and thin.
Both Mugwort and Wormwood have been highly esteemed for overcoming
epilepsy in persons of a feeble constitution, and of a sensitive
nervous temperament, especially in young females. Mugwort tea,
and a decoction of Wormwood, may be confidently given for the
purposes just named, also to correct female irregularities.
For promoting the monthly flow, Chinese women make a confection
of the leaves of Mugwort mixed with rice and sugar, which, when
needed to overcome arrested monthly fluxes, or hysteria, they
_instar bellaria ingerunt_, "eat as a sweetmeat."
A drachm of the powdered leaves of the Mugwort, taken four times
a day, has cured chronic hysterical fits otherwise irrepressible. The
true Wormwood (_Artemisia absinthium_) is used for preparing
absinthe, a seductive liqueur, which, when taken to excess, induces
epileptic attacks. Any habitual use of alcohol flavoured with this
herb singularly impairs the mental and physical powers.
"An ointment," says Meyrick, "made of the juice of Mugwort with
hogs' lard, disperses hard knots and kernels about the neck and
throat."