Table 9.

Survey of Healing Qualities/Uses of Top 14 Simples (found in 12 out of 12 sources consulted)

Simple	Description of Healing Qualities/Uses by Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, 1st Century (from Beck translation, 2005)	Description of Healing Qualities/Uses from Paul of Aegina, De Re Medica Libri Septem, Book 7, 7th Century (from Adams translation, 1844)	Description of Healing Qualities and Uses from Serapion, Liber de Simplici medicina, 12th Century (from Alpagus Bellunensis translation, 1550)
Acacia	(Shittah Tree) Astringent and cooling properties; helps with eye diseases and erysipelas, shingles, chilblains, eye growths, mouth sores, and prolapses of the eyes and uterus; stops diarrhea.	Desiccant in the 3rd degree, cooling in the first (but if washed, of the second). It is sour and terrene.	Cold and dry in first degree. Comforts eye and ulcers of the mouth and eyes; gets rid of old humors from womb.
Alum	Warm, astringent, clear the corneas, reduce overgrown fleshes; beneficial for thrush, pustules, ear rheums, leprosies, itches, chilblains, cancers, spreading ulcers, nits, pediculosis, burns, swellings, and armpit and groin odors. Induces menstruation, stops barrenness, and expels embryos/fetuses. Helps with inflammation sof the gums, uvulas, tonsils, and mouth.	Sour.	Calefactive, abstergent; heals scabies and other ulcers; abscindit menstruation.
Asphalt/Bitumen	Anti-inflammatory, agglutinative, dispersive, emollient, and beneficial for uterine suffocations and prolapses; checks epileptic attacks; provokes menstruation; helpful for chronic coughs, asthma, tics, dyspnea, snake bits, pains of the hip joints and side, bowel ailments, catarrhs, toothache, gout, and arthritis.	Hot and dry in the second degree; agglutinative of fresh wounds.	Hot and dry in second degree. Prevents abscesses; is softening and resolutive; used for epilepsy; provokes urine and menstruation.
Balsam	Counteracts uterine chills and draws down afterbirth and embryos/fetuses; dilates cervix; cleanses sores, eyes, and wild animal bites. Aids in pleurisy, inflammations of the lungs, coughs, epileptics, dizziness, colic. Diuretic.	Desiccant and heating in second degree.	Hot and dry in the second degree. Comforts frigidity of the womb for birth, moves ulcers, provokes urine; good for asthma because it matures superflidities (superfluitates).
Cardamom	Has warming, astringent, desiccative, soporific, and analgesic properties. Soothes inflammations of the eyes, internal organs, liver disease, kidney disease, gout, and female disorders.	Acrid, bitter, destroys intestinal worms, clears away scabies.	Hot and dry in first degree. Resolves and fortifies; comforts stomach, syncopi (fainting), and vomiting.
Cassia (linea and fistula)	Has warming, diuretic, desiccative, and mildly astringent properties. Improves shortsightedness; removes birthmarks; draws down the menses, helps for snake bits, all internal inflammations and for the kidneys; used by women in sitz baths and to dilate the cervix.	Heating and desiccative in the third order, acrid, astringent, incisive, discutient, imparts strength to organs, is emmenagogue.	Temperate; extinguishes activity of the blood, resolves hard apostemas, comforts the stomach and liver pain; purges cholera; relaxes the stomach.
Myrrh	Has heating, soporific, agglutinative, desiccative, and astringent properties; softens the uterus and opens it when closed; draws down the menses and embryos/fetuses; also helps with chronic cough, pain of the side and chest, diarrhea, dysentery, and shivering fits; mends roughness of the trachea and horseness of voice; kills intestinal worms, cures bad breakth and armpit odor; strengthens teeth and gums; heals head- wounds, bruised ears, exposed bones, ear afflictions, facial eruptions, afflictions of the eyes.	Heating and desiccative in the 2nd order; emmenagogue, promotes expectoration from the chest and lungs. Agglutinates wounds of the head; bitter; abortifacient; kills worms. Detergent, expectorant.	Hot and dry in 3rd degree. Cleanser, coagulant; gets rid of worms. Helps with cough, asthma, and pain in the lungs. Heats, mollifies, and resolves. Provokes menstruation and expels fetus.
Pennyroyal	Warms, thins, promotes digestion. Draws the menses, afterbirth, and embryos/fetuses. Brings up phlegm from the lungs; relieves nausea and stomach pain; soothes inflammations, gout, and itching. Use in a sitz bath for uterine inflations, indurations, and twistings..	Strongly calefacient and attenuant; rubefacient when applied externally; promotes expectoration of thick humor lodged in chest and lungs.	Drying and heating in the 3rd degree. Resolvent, diuretic; calefactive, applied externally for pleurisy; helps with asthma, nausea, purges flegmatic humors; provokes menstruation, expels fetus; rubefacient, helps spleen.
Pepper	Warms, helps digestion, promotes urine production, perspiration, and cleanses eyes; helps with shivering fits, wild animal bites, draws embryos/fetuses; causes barenness; helps for all chest afflictions, spleen inflammation, digestion, and sore throats, ends colic, purges phlegm, stimulates appetite; analgesic, warming; dissipates scrofulous swellings of the glands and leprosies.	Acrid, heating, dessicative.	Both white and black pepper are hot and dry in 4th degree. desiccative, calefactive, fortifying, cleansing. Provokes urine.
Rue	Warms, burns, ulcerates, is diuretic and emmenagogic; ends diarrhea; is antidote to poison; stops colic; good for pains on the side and chest, coughs, inflammation of the lungs, pain of the hips or joints; good for inflations of the colon, uterus and intestine; relieves uterine suffocation; expels intestinal worms, sharpens vision; helps with headaches, inflammation of the testicles, leprosy, warts, earaches, erysipelas, shingles and scurf.	Terrene, cold and subtile substance. Hence it relieve sprains and ruptures and astringent. Alleviates spitting of blood, coliac and dysenteric affections. Cures hepatic (liver) complaints.	Hot and dry in 3rd degree. Resolves thick, viscous humors; purges and expels through urine; provokes urine and menstruation, comforts suffocation of the uterus. Helps digestive ailments.
Southernwood	Helps with orthopnea, ruptures, spasms, hip ailmets, difficult micturation, and delayed menstruation; serves as antidote for poisons and for shivers; helps with spider and scorpion bites, and inflammations of the eyes.	Warm, dry in third degree, discutient (dispersive), desiccative; cures periodical rigors, alopecia (hair loss).	Hot and dry in 3rd; abstersive, resolutive, incisive. Helps with retention of menstruation.
Spurge	Removes hair; allays toothache; removes warts, carbuncles, cankers, gangrenes, fistulas; purges the bowel.	Caustic.	Hot and dry in 4th degree. Cleanses the eye; warms humors; aids dropsy and other similar cold afflictions.
Storax	Has heating, emollient, and digestive properties; is effective for coughs, catarrhs, discharges from the hostrils, hoarseness of voice, loss of voice, and ringing in the ears. Draws down the menses, stimulates cervical dilation, softens the bowel; warms, softens, and is soporific.	Calefacient, emollient, digestive. Useful in coughs, catarrhs, and defluxion; promotes menstruation.	Hot and dry in the first degree. Emollient, maturative, aids in coughs, colds; cleanses uterus after birth and provokes menstruation.
Turpentine	Warms, softens, relaxes; helps with coughs, cleanses impurities from the chest; diurectic; softens stool, helps with digestion, genital itching, leprosy, and pains in the side.	Heating in the second degree and desiccative in the first, in the second when dried. Fruit is desiccative in the third order. Diuretic and useful for the spleen.	Hot and dry in 3rd degree. (Softening) Mollifactive, dissolutive, cleansing, comforts cough and ulcers of the lungs and bloody sputum; provokes urine, softens the stomach.