A sixteenth-century Irish collection of remedies for ailments of the male reproductive organs

Abstract

This article presents an edition, translation and discussion of an Irish collection of cures for ailments of the male reproductive organs. The collection, now preserved in RIA MS 23 N 29 (467), originally formed part of a much larger medical treatise found in RIA MS 24 B 3 (445), a composite codex written primarily by the North Connacht physician Conla Mac an Leagha in the early sixteenth century. While most of the therapeutic remedies examined here simply call for different herbal and animal ingredients, the text also includes verbal incantations and other instructions that might be described as ritualistic in nature, some of which are of interest for their wider literary resonances. This material is significant not only for the insight that it provides into the transmission of late antique medical learning in premodern Ireland, but also for our understanding of the relationship between medical remedy collections compiled in various medieval vernaculars.