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

subsection 179

179. Mas: mace; hot and dry in the second degree; it is the skin of a tree, or the husk of the nut called muscata, and that is the truer view of it; it has the consuming, comforting and dissolving virtues; the best colour for it to be is off-red; the best taste for it to have is a sharp taste; it retains its efficacy for nine years. If it be boiled in strong wine and drunk, it will comfort the stomach, and if held in the mouth for a long while it will cleanse the brain. Item, if mace be boiled in juice of fennel until it just reaches boiling point, and the same amount of strong wine be put through it, and it be strained well, it will help with the cold dropsy, with the coldness of the stomach, and with the asthma that is caused by coldness, and it will expel the viscous phlegmatic humour from the chest and the brain. Item, if mace be pounded finely and the same amount of mastix put through it, and it be mixed with the oil of roses, and fresh wax be put in it, and it be applied to the upper part of the stomach as a plaster, it will help with the pain and the indigestion. Item, if


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powder be made of mace and it be put in food or drink, this will help with heart-burn.