On the medical knowledge of the ancient Irish / by Thomas More Madden.

Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the medical knowledge of the ancient Irish / by Thomas More Madden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Piers “Account of Westmeath” we read that the power of curing burns was supposed to exist in the saliva of certain persons, who acquired the virtue by drawing a lizard found in Westmeath across their tongue in a direction contrary to the scales of the reptile.® The reputation of saliva as a remedial agent is very ancient and widespread. Pliny devotes a considerable space to its supposed properties as a preservative from contagion and an antidote for poison.^* The ancient Irish medical manuscript, some extracts from which I shall now refer to, occurs in the Betham collection, and is numbered 409. Its antiquity may be inferred from the fact of its being spoken of in another treatise to which the late Mr. O’Curry assigned the date of 1350. The following extracts are taken from Mr. Long’s manuscidpt translation of the Irish work, a copy of which exists in the library of the Academy. I need hardly observe that Mr. Long was well known as a most competent Celtic scholar, and I have not attempted to alter his rendering of the Irish text. This translation contains two distinct treatises. The first is entitled “ The Materia Medica.” The other is entitled “ The Second Book, an Appendix to the Materia Medica.” The character of these works is essentially different. “ The INIateria Medica ” consists in an alphabetically arranged treatise on the various articles of the materia medica, and contains evidence of some acquaintance with the works of the principal classic writers on the subject. I now subjoin one e.xample of each of the alphabetical division of the Irish IVIateria Medica, selecting the first example of each heading, or where that was too long, then the shortest. These may be taken as fair specimens of this work, the translation of which by Mr. Long forms a closely-written manuscript of 125 folio pages. I have also appended a few commentaries which appeared necessary to illustrate the text. On some future occasion I may call attention to “ The Second Book,” of which I have transcribed the first part, together with some quotations taken at random, as examples of the po])ular medical superstitions that have prevailed more or less in Ireland from the extirpation of Celtic learning down to a recent period. “J/a/eria Medica.—Albedarig, Columbina, Basilicon—three names of the Columbine. It is hot and dry in the third degree, and one that has it about him or is rubbed with it will not be injured by venemous serpents or mad dogs. This herb boiled and applied to boils will break them. The juice of this herb or the herb itself broken small and put on a sore affected with cancer heals it; and it is good against darkness or obscuration of the sight. The juice of the roots of this herb and the blossom of the same herb boiled on wine excites the blood of the matrix. Boiled on butter, like oil, it relieves cough and spitting of blood. Item.— * Valiancy’s Collecteana de Rebus Hibernicis. Vol. I. P. 58. Plinv. Hist. Nat. Lib. VII., c. 2. Lib. XXVIII., c. 1.