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

subsection 214

214. Ouua: i.e. eggs; every egg is hot and wet, and it said that there is wetness both in their yolks and their whites. When the yolk is roasted, it has the retentive virtue. Of all eggs, the eggs of hens are best, and they are more to be praised when they are fresh than when they are old. The eggs of birds who live on water are not to be praised, according to Avicenna, because bad humours are generated by them. He says also that the white of all eggs has the ability to counter poison, especially the white of hen eggs. Avicenna says that the best way to eat them is to boil them in water and to eat them soft; according to Avicenna, the yolk is recommended for nourishment rather than the white. If the yolk of eggs be eaten soft, this will help with roughness of the voice, and of the throat, and with tightness of the chest, and it will serve for people with pleurisy, and those with hectic fever or haemoptysis. Avicenna directs to boil an egg in vinegar until it is hard and to eat it, and this will help with dysentery.