Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Cnicus Benedictus - COMPOSITAE - Blessed Thistle, Holy Thistle, Spotted Carduus
Cnicus Benedictus
COMPOSITAE
blessed thistle, holy thistle, bitter thistle, spotted carduus
A number of the thistles are reputed to have medicinal properties, and the values of this species have been passed along with the advance of civilization, from southern Europe, to England, and thence to America. For the plant, as found here and there in the East and South of this country, came to us with the immigrants. It is a much-branched plant, with alternate, lance-shaped leaves, and bears small heads of yellow-appearing flowers, from May to August.
The bitter-tasting leaves are used as an infusion. Meyer’s Herbalist suggests 1 teaspoonful to 1 cup of water, to be taken in sips during the day. Few writers consulted value greatly the blessed thistle, but all list it as tonic, diaphoretic, and, in large doses, emetic.
In earlier times it seems to have had a wide reputation and the “blessed” name attached to it shows belief in its beneficent effect. Culpeper, writing in 1653 in the middle of the Reformation period, makes this rather snide comment about the name: “It is called . . . Blessed Thistle, or Holy Thistle. I suppose the name was put upon it by some that had little holiness themselves.”
In that time there was plenty of superstition, for each plant was under the sign of a planet, as when Culpeper says of the blessed thistle: “It strengthens the attractive faculty of men and clarifies the blood, because [it is] ruled by Mars.” Well, maybe so.