Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
An Irish Version of Gualterus de Dosibus (Author: Walter de Agilon/Galterius Agilinus)
paragraph 99
Note particularly that some of the medicines are administered as a solid substance, and
p.113
others as a liquid substance. The medicines administered as a solid substance are always in pills, or electuaries. Should they be in pills it is proper to administer them together with wine and a wafer at the
beginning of the night. It is proper to sleep on them since they require a powerful heat to dissolve them, and the heat passes into the internal members at night. For that reason Avicenna says: ‘Cum aliquis medicinam solutiuam biberit melius est si medicina fuerit fortis ut super eam dormiat:’40 i.e. when a person drinks a laxative it is best for him, should the medicine be strong, to sleep on it before it operates as its efficacy is thus improved. It is best for him, should the medicine be weak, not to sleep on it, since nature would digest it. For this reason it is proper that the medicine administered as a soft substance, because of its mildness, should be administered in the morning when sleeping is
finished. However, Haly says that, should the patient be feeble or weak, or should it be summer time, one should take as a draught before going to bed a medicine which is mildly laxative; that it is not proper to sleep on it after purging, and that, whatever medicine it might be, it is best not to sleep on it when the medicine begins to operate.