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Medical and culinary recipes were often written on the spare paper at the front and back of books. At the back of this law book there is a recipe in Latin and English for a drink which would serve as a ‘purge’. A purge was designed to cause an evacuation of the bowels, in the belief that this would cleanse the body of illness, disease or noxious substances. The recipe in English reads:

Take of Bettony, Liverwort, agrimony,

mayden hayre, bugloss: and violetts of eich

*quarter of an ounce of Rubarbe* an handfull,

of sarsaphras and sarsapill

of either halfe an ounce boyle them all

together in 16 pounds of fountayne water (which is 16

pynts) till the water be halfe consumed:.

then ad of anyl seeds and sweete fennill

seeds of eich: 3 ounces; of Lyquorise

2 ounces of french barly 3 ounce of

resings of the sunn halfe a pounde, boyle

them all agayne till halfe bee consumed and

then adde of succory water one pounde (and

one pynte) off sena one ounce Myra=

bolons Indy and Cytron of eich halfe an ounce

boyle them all agayne a litle while and lett

the pott stande from the fire luke warume

6 howers then lett ytt bee cooled and clarifyed

for use.

Citation:
Joannes Nicolaus Milis, Repertorium admodum solenne quod merito opus singularium dictorum appelant do. Nicolai de Milis (Lyon, 1522),
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed December 6, 2025,
https://www.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/581