s is said to owe
many of its supposed virtues to the bryony root, substituted for the
mandrake which it is alleged to contain. The true mandrake is a
gruesome herb, which was held in superstitious awe by the Greeks
and the Romans. Its root was forked, and bears some resemblance
to the legs of a man; for which reason the moneymakers [67] of
the past increased the likeness, and attributed supernatural powers
to the plant. It was said to grow only beneath a murderer's gibbet,
and when torn from the earth by its root to utter a shriek which
none might hear and live. From earliest times, in the East, a notion
prevailed that the mandrake would remove sterility. With which
purpose in view, Rachel said to Leah: "Give me, I pray thee, of thy
son's mandrakes" (Genesis xxx. v. 14). In later times the Bryony
has come into use instead of the true mandrake, and it has
continued to form a profitable spurious article with mountebank
doctors. In Henry the Eighth's day, ridiculous little images made
from Bryony roots, cut into the figure of a man, and with grains of
millet inserted into the face as eyes, the same being known as
pappettes or mammettes, were accredited with magical powers,
and fetched high prices with simple folk. Italian ladies have been
known to pay as much as thirty golden ducats for one of these
artificial mandrakes. Readers of Thalaba (Southey) will remember
the fine scene in which Khawla procures this plant to form part of
the waxen figure of the Destroyer. Unscrupulous vendors of the
fraudulent articles used to seek out a thriving young Bryony plant,
and to open the earth round it. Then being prepared with a mould
such as is used for making Plaster of Paris figures, they fixed it
close to the root, and fastened it with wire to keep it in place.
Afterwards, by filling the earth up to the root they left it to assume
the required shape, which was generally accomplished in a single
summer.

The medicinal tincture (H.) of White Bryony (_Bryonia alba_) is
of special service to persons of dark hair and complexion, with
firm fibre of flesh, and of a bilious cross-grained temperament.
Also it is of [68] particular use for relieving coughs, and colds of a
feverish bronchial sort, caught by exposure to the east wind. On
the contrary, the catarrhal troubles of sensitive females, and of
young children, are better met by Ipecacuanha:--

"Coughing in a shady grove
Sat my Juliana,
Lozenges I gave my love,