Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Irish Materia Medica (Author: Tadhg Ó Cuinn)

subsection 1

1. Aron barba, iarus, pes uituli, i.e. the three names of the cuckoo-pint, and it is clear, according to Rhases165 in his book Colliget, that the herb is hot and dry in the third degree, and that it has the laxative, attenuating and dissolving virtues in its root. And it serves well to make fine powder of this herb, together with pig lard, and if a poultice of it be put on the cold imposthumes it will dissolve and attenuate and mature them. Item, take the same herb, and as much of mullein, put them in a new little bag of linen, boil well in water, place hot on the anus, and it will be helpful in the flux called haemorrhoids. Item, make a fine powder of the roots of this herb and put it in the wounds in which there is proud flesh. Item, take the roots of the same herb, dry them, make powder of them, mix them with rose water, and put them on the face and it will takeaway its lumps and freckles and give it a bright, clear colour. Platearius says that this herb has four virtues, the dissolving, the consuming, the laxative and the attenuating, and for that reason it is ordered in the case of imposthumes of the ears to boil this herb in wine, oil and pig lard, to put cumin powder in it, and to apply it as a poultice to the ears, and it will be helpful in disease of the ears. It is appropriate to give this herb for the shortness of breath called asthma. Pound this herb, boil it in bear grease or in old lard of boar, and strain it, and rub it on the chest and the flanks, and it will open up the breathing and soften up the chest. Item, place the juice of this herb in the vagina, as a pessary is applied,


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and it will provoke menstruation surely and gently, and if benedicta is added to it, it will provoke menstruation all the more, as we have said, Platearius says that this herb has great effect in the winter and in the summer, and its effect is great in its foliage, and more still in its root, and more than that again in the tubers it has on it. If its roots be dried, it will have effect in all the things we have said for a year.

Of cuckoo-pint

of juice of unripe sloes

of wormwood

of southernwood

of nettle

of white hellebore

of coltsfoot

of sorrel

of vinegar

of parsnip

of wild garlic

of agaric

of agrimony

of tutsan

of spleenwort

of squill

of oak galls

of columbine

of alexanders


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of quicklime

of mallow

of aloes

of ash

of onion

of alum

of spermaceti

of wood sage

of spurge

of starch

of scabious

of garlic

of nettle seed

of dill

of flower of roses

of anise

of celery

of orpiment

of orach

of mercury

of tree gum

of aristolochia

of ragwort

of tansy

of penny royal

of avens

of hazel


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of oats

of mouse-ear hawkweed

of gold.