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

subsection 292

292. Ziucra: moderately hot and wet in the first degree; it has the virtues of relaxing the bowels, softening, and cooling; it makes the choleric humour more acute by reason of its sweetness, because, as Ysaac says, everything acid stops acuteness of the choleric humour, and everything sweet increases it. If small suppositories of honey, sugar and salt be given in the acute fevers, this will stop the


p.646

excessive heat. There are three sorts of sugar, white sugar, yellow sugar, and sugar candy. White sugar is suitable for syrups and compounds made against acute fevers. Sugar candy stops the thirst and excessive heat of the stomach; it is suitable for people who are labouring In hot weather, for people with phthisis, hectic fever, or coughs, when given in electuaries, food, or drink; everything that is corroded or reduced by wetness is restored by sugar. To make an electuary of it, take white sugar, a pound or two, and soften it in cold water until it has all melted, put it in a brass pot to boil, and put the following comforting spices in it, that is, ginger, cinnamon, galangal, and nutmeg, boil them as appropriate, and this electuary will have the virtue of comforting the heart and all the parts of the body.

Colophon

So we have achieved a succinct and beneficial fulfilment of this book, drawn from the Antidotaries and Herbals of the city of Salerno, according to the united studium of the doctors of Montpellier. Those masters have stated that everything that is begun in the name of God deserves to be completed in the name of God.And that is how this book was completed by Tadhg Ó Chuinn, bachelor in physic, in the month of October, on the feast-day of Saint Luke, the Apostle, and in the year of Our Lord one thousand, four hundred and fifteen, to be precise. The End, Amen.

p.647

This book was written out by Aedh Buidhe Ó Leighin, and I believe, if I were not dejected, that ... (the rest of the sentence was obliterated).