But the basis underneath these
Bodkins on which they were fast, were made of a more pliable substance, and
looked almost like a little bagg of green Leather, or rather resembled the
shape and surface of a wilde Cucumber, or _cucumeris asinini_, and I could
plainly perceive them to be certain little baggs, bladders, or receptacles
full of water, or as I ghess, the liquor of the Plant, which was poisonous,
and those small Bodkins were but the Syringe-pipes, or Glyster-pipes, which
first made way into the skin, and then served to convey that poisonous
juice, upon the pressing of those little baggs, into the interior and
sensible parts of the skin, which being so discharg'd, does corrode, or, as
it were, burn that part of the skin it touches; and this pain will
sometimes last very long, according as the impression is made deeper or
stronger.
The other parts of the leaf or surface of the Nettle, have very little
considerable, but what is common to most of these kinds of Plants, as the
ruggedness or indenting, and hairiness, and other roughnesses of the
surface or out-side of the Plant, of which I may say more in another place.
As I shall likewise of certain little pretty cleer Balls or Apples which I
have observed to stick to the sides of these leaves, both on the upper and
under side, very much like the small Apples which I have often observ'd to
grow on the leaves of an Oak call'd _Oak-apples_ which are nothing but the
_Matrices_ of an Infect, as I elsewhere shew.
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