Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Irish Materia Medica (Author: Tadhg Ó Cuinn)
subsection 117
117. Epetimen: i.e. dodder of thyme; hot and dry in the third degree; it has the ability to purge natural and unnatural melancholic humour in the first place, and to purge the phlegmatic humour in the second place, and for this reason it is of benefit to people with mania and melancholia, quartan fever, quotidian fever, disease of the spleen,
p.537
and every illness arising from the melancholic humour. It is usually put in compounds, because it accentuates the laxative medicines, and because, if it be given on its own, it induces swooning; it clears the passages of the lungs of the gross phlegmatic humour, and of the melancholic humour by its proper operation. Notice, according to Platearius, that this herb digests the melancholic humour by its proper action. If this herb be boiled in wine against the swooning that is caused by windiness, it will greatly relieve it. If the same herb and dodder of flax be pounded and pig lard put through it, it will help with hardness of the spleen. If the same herb be boiled in water and drunk before the paroxysm of the quartan fever, it will help with it.