Barley Full Page Scan, Gerard's Herbal: The General History of Plants, Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives, HATCH 39&40

Barley, Nature, and Virtues

Gerards describes barley as having a shorter head or ear than wheat. This head is also much more bristly. The stalks are jointed and fragile when compared to wheat. It has the added benefit of maturing quickly from the time of planting. 

The nature of barley is known for being “not the famous temperature of wheat.” Even though it isn’t as potent it still makes effective medicine as it can cool and dry.

Barley has almost as many uses as wheat. In part because of its prevelance. Barley cleans, helps provoke urine, makes you gassy and is in general an enemy of the stomach. Barley meal boiled with honey water and figs takes away inflammation. And if you add pitch, rosin, and pigeon dung it will soften hard swellings. Barley meal with meliot and poppy seeds will take away side pain as well as gas. Barley meal with linseed, fenugreek, and rye mixed with tar, wax, oil and the urine of a young boy helps digest, soften, and ripen swelling in the throat. Barley boiled with wine, myrtle flowers, pomegranate skin, wild pears, and bramble leaves stops diarrhea. Another method is to take a barley ale and boil it to a thick honey consistency.  This gives you a pain cream for achy joints. While not as effective, this method works well in a pinch. Barley meal boiled in water with garden nightshade and poppy, powdered linseed, and powdered fenugreek with a touch of hog’s grease will help all against all burning and swelling and clear Dropsy. Dropsy is when the cavities between your tissues fill with liquid.