118. Esula: spurge; it is hot and dry in the third degree; its root is best for the laxative medicines of every sort; it has the ability to purge the phlegmatic humour and the viscous humours principally, and of purging the choleric humour in the second place, for which reason it greatly benefits people with podagra, gout of the hand, arthritis, colic, ileus, dropsy accompanied by fever, quotidian fever, and the likes. If this herb be given in hot wine or in hot ale or in an uncooked egg, it will work effectively, and it will accentuate every medicine that purges the phlegmatic humour, and the other humours as well. If it be collected in the spring, it will retain its efficacy for two years.