Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Irish Materia Medica (Author: Tadhg Ó Cuinn)
subsection 110
110. Ebulus, cameactis: i.e. the two names of the dwarf elder; it is hot and dry in the second degree; its efficacy and operation are very
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like those of the elder, except that the laxative virtue is stronger in the dwarf elder; it is the juice of its roots that are suitable for medical use; principally it purges the phlegmatic humour, and it also attracts and purges all the viscous humours; it violently purges above and below, and, for this reason it should not be given except when the material has been digested. The body should be prepared for the flux before administering it, and Platearius says that a medicine which provokes vomiting should not be given until the material has been digested. A purge of this herb serves well against tertian fever that is caused by either the lemon-coloured or the yolk-coloured choleric humour, and it also serves well against the quotidian fever that has lasted a long time. The same herb serves well against oppilation of the liver, jaundice, colic, ileus, podagra, arthritis, and leucophlegmasia. Item, take an egg-shell full of the juice of its roots and mix it with white wine and administer it, and this will be good against the things we have mentioned. If the roots of the same herb be taken and put in a laxative syrup or oximel, or if its juice be boiled with honey, the honey will have great laxative virtue.
Item, if a bath be made of the foliage of this herb for dropsy patients, it will greatly comfort them; the ointment made from this herb for people who have a rash or scab or exudation just under the skin. A fomentation may be made of this herb for the part of the body where there is inflammation. Rhases says to gather the roots of this herb in the spring and to dry them in the sun, and they will retain their efficacy for ... years. The same man says to make a powder of the roots of the same herb, and to temper it with juice of fennel and mint and sugar, mix them and leave to stand for a night, and, if it be
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drunk the following morning, it will help the illness we have mentioned. Item, if foliage of dwarf elder and of elder be boiled in salted water, and a bath be made for the part of the body that is swollen with dropsy, or where there is arthritis or podagra, it will help it. Item, if foliage of dwarf elder and foliage of elder be pounded finely and boiled in the juice of this herb itself, and it be put as a plaster on the joints, as hot as can be borne, it will help with arthritis and the swelling of dropsy. Item, the juice of the same herb and powder of spurge with sugar will purge every illness that arises from the phlegmatic humour, and the illnesses we have previously mentioned.