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

subsection 124

124. Ferrum, ferrugo & sgama ferri: i.e. iron, iron dross, and iron flake; hot and dry in the third degree; there are differences between these sorts i.e. ferrum is the iron, ferrugo is the iron dross, and squama ferri is the iron flake. The iron has the comforting, attractive and constraining virtues. Milk boiled with iron will stop the flux of the abdomen. If a wound be cauterized with it, it will stop the flow of blood. The iron dross has the attenuating and drying virtues. Wine in which the dross has been immersed will correct grossness in the spleen, and its oppilation. Item, if fine powder be made of the iron dross, and it be mixed with the juice of mullein, and cotton be dipped in it and put on the anus, this will stop the tlux of the haemorrhoids. Item, take red-hot dross, pour vinegar on it, and allow the fumes to the anus, and this will help with tenesmus; the iron flake should not be given on its own, without styptic substances with it, such as the foliage of roses, because it would create sores in the intestines; it purges by reason of its weight the corrupt


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humours that it finds in the stomach and the intestines, and it has the ability principally to purge the melancholic humour. It has the constraining virtue, as is clear in the case of people with haemorrhoids, because it stops their flux, and it also stops the women's flux of blood; it is a powerful help for a bad colour in the face which is caused by the melancholic humour. To cause a person to forget something of hatred or of love or of anything else that is bothering him, if he be given wine or a drink that has been boiled with dross, he will cease to remember, by the power of this thing. Platearius says to reduce the dross to the fineness of grains of pepper, and to put into it the powder of cinnamon, ginger, anise and liquorice, and to take it fasting in the morning and before going to bed, and this will help with oppilation of the liver and spleen; powder of the iron flake may be put in electuaries and compound medicines such as Trifera Saracenica and the like.