Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
Rosa Anglica (Author: [unknown])
section 26
26
Let the special cure be made as follows for the dropsy called ascites, which is caused by heat, for it is more dangerous than hyposarca: if he have constipation, make him laxative clysters, wherein these things shall be added to the ordinary ones: wormwood, centaury, cumin, parietary, salt, bran and common
p.289
oil.689 Then make him this alterative digestive drink,690 for it helps dropsical persons, while excess of thirst, and astringents kill them: [rx ] take roots of fennel, smallage, and parsley, an equal portion of each: endive, scariole, lettuce, liverwort, maidenhair, a fistful of each; red and white sanders, and the four greater cold seeds, and the four lesser cold seeds, as are, the seeds of lettuce, coltsfoot, endive and scariole, ounce ½ of each; ivory turnings, roses ounce 1 of each; nutmeg, drachm 2; cinnamon drachm 3; ½ quart. of liquorice, or 4 pounds of the juice of plantago, or else mix it entire therein; ounce ½(?) of sugar, and make three or four ounces thereof, unless he have a cough; add a little vinegar thereto; and should he have diarrhoea, make it with milk, wherein a red-hot iron is quenched. If the sick man be old, add anise, and hyssop, and watercress, and let it be used every day. If a specific purgative be needed, give triphera saracenica with rhubarb in clarified whey of goat's milk, with water of endivia; or some of the syrup before mentioned;691 nevertheless I think little of every laxative medicine in this case, except clysters and rhubarb692 in purified whey of goat's milk, because all these things do harm, unless there be present very excessive wateriness, and constipation.