Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Irish Materia Medica (Author: Tadhg Ó Cuinn)
subsection 3
3. Absinthium, centonica, pointicum i.e. the three names of the wormwood, and it is said that this herb is hot in the first degree and dry in the second degree. Avicenna says to boil this herb in water, strain it well, take a drink of it the following day, and it will help with soreness of the abdomen and pain in the stomach, and it will comfort the appetitative and digestive virtues in the stomach. Item, pound this herb, rub in cow's milk, strain it well, drink it warm, and it will kill the long worms of the stomach, i.e. lumbrici. Item, pound the same herb with vinegar, press it well through a linen cloth, rub it on the face, and flies and midges will do no harm to the patient that day. Item, put the same herb in wine or in ale, give it to drink, and it will help with the bite of a
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mad dog and of every other poisonous animal. Item, boil this herb in water, make a fomentation of it, and it will help with deafness of the ear. Item, pound this herb with honey, press it through a linen cloth, and put one drop of it warm in the ear, and it will help with discharge of the ear and with foulness of the ear. Again, it is good to rub the same juice on the face which has been bruised by a blow or a fall, and it will give it a good colour. Item, make a poultice of the same herb and of honey, and it will help with quinsy. Item, boil this herb in water, and with it wash the member that has eruptions or scabs on it and it will help with it. Item, rub this herb into wine, let him drink it before going to sea, and he will not vomit, nor will sea-sickness harm him. Item, put this herb in the pillow of the sick person, and it will bring on sleep. Item, pound this herb with gall of ox, press it through a linen cloth, put one drop of it in the ear, and it will help with deafness and noise of the ear. If this herb be put in books or in clothes of good quality, moths will not be generated in them. Item, make a poultice of this herb and of honey, put it on the surface over the spleen or on the surface over the womb, and it will help the womb and the spleen with their hardness and painfulness. Item, if the juice of this herb be rubbed on the pulses of the hands or the feet, it will prevent the rigor and paroxysm of intermittent fever. Item, take the juice of this herb and juice of endive, the same amount of both, and drink it against the hardness of the liver and against jaundice that comes of the choleric humour. Item, take the juice of this herb and sugar and warm water, drink it fasting, and it will help with every headache that comes from windy matter of the choleric humour which rises from
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the stomach to the head. Item, take the juice of this herb and vinegar and warm water, drink it fasting, and it will help with hysteria. Item, boil this herb in wine, pound it well, and put a poultice of it on the surface over the spleen, and it will help with the hardness of the spleen and of the liver. Item, take the juice of wormwood and honey and powder of cumin, mix them together, and put them as a poultice on the member that is bruised or discoloured, and it will help with the pain of it. Also, it provokes menstruation. Again, Galenus says in the Liber Graduum that it purges the choleric humour in the first place, and the phlegmatic humour in the second place, and especially from the opening of the stomach and from the liver. Also, it is said in the same place that there are two contrary virtues in the wormwood, i.e. the laxative virtue and the constrictive virtue; the laxative virtue because when the digested humours occur in the stomach by reason of the consumption of this herb, they are purged in respect of their weight. And when the undigested humours occur in the stomach by reason of the consumption of this herb, they become crass, and their undigestedness increases because of the stiptic virtue that is in it. Again, it purges the choleric humour from the mesenteric veins, and this herb increases an appetite that is reduced by an excess of choleric humour in the stomach. This is how it is given: three ounces of the juice of this herb and an ounce of white sugar, mixed well together, and to give a full spoon of it to drink fasting.