Also snakeweed. [SNAKE sb.]

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  1.  The plant bistort, Polygonum bistorta.

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  In dial. use the name has also been applied to other species of Polygonum, as P. lapathifolium and P. viviparum; and to the plants Mercurialis perennis, dog’s mercury, and Cicuta maculata, an American hemlock.

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1597.  Gerarde, Herball, II. lxxxi. 323. Bistorta is called in English Snakeweede. Ibid. Broade leafed Snakeweede.

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1601.  R. Chester, Love’s Martyr (1878), 90. Dwarfe gentian, Snakeweed, and Sommer Sauory.

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1611.  Cotgr., Bistorte, Bistort,… Snakeweed.

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1707.  Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 284. [Mountebanks] … instead of Mandrakes … sell the Roots of Bryony or of Snake-weed.

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1760.  J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 317. Snakeweed, Polygonum.

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1852.  Morfit, Tanning & Currying (1853), 40. Certain annual plants—as the septfoil and bistort, or snake-weed.

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1887.  Brit. Med. Jrnl., Feb., 424. The rhizome of snake-weed … is successfully used by the Lithuanian peasantry as a prophylactic in cases of bite by rabid animals.

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  2.  = SNAKE-ROOT 1.

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1631.  Winthrop, Hist. New Eng. (1825), I. 62. He always carried about with him match and a compass, and in summer time snake-weed.

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1671.  Salmon, Syn. Med., III. xxii. 392. Snakeweed. The root of the Virginian cures the Plague, poyson, Pox [etc.].

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1725.  Fam. Dict., s.v. Fryars Balsam, Infuse in it … one Ounce of Virginia Snakeweed cut small.

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1855.  Dunglison, Dict. Med. Sci. (ed. 12), 100. Aristolochia Serpentaria,… Virginian Snakeroot,… Snake-weed.

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