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

subsection 223

223. Polipodium: i.e. polypody (a fern); hot and dry in the second degree; there are two sorts of it, a sort that grows on stones, and a sort that grows on trees, and it is the sort that grows on oak that is most in demand of them for medical purposes; it purges the phlegmatic humour principally, and the melancholic humour in the second place, especially from the stomach and the intestines; it serves well for people with the quotidian and tertian fevers which are caused by the lemon-coloured and yolk-coloured cholera; it opens the oppilation of the liver and spleen that is caused by viscous humours; it serves well for people with quartan fever and colic, and for those who have gross, dense, humours in the stomach and intestines. This herb should be boiled in soup, and that is how it should be administered to people of

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phlegmatic humour and melancholic humour, and that is also how it should be given to preserve the health. The substances that are used against windiness should be boiled with it, such as seed of anise, cumin and fennel; it is of benefit against arthritis, podagra, and every illness of the joints. Item, to make a syrup of it, take two or three ounces of the roots of this herb, well pounded, boil them in water with sloes, violets, and seed of fennel, anise, and cumin, boil well, strain, and put in sugar ad lib., and this syrup serves well to maintain the health and against disease of the joints.