sandragon

Ingredients

sarcacol, mastike, encense, sandragon, emachite, sangrinary, sheppardis purse, planteyn

Preparation Steps

Original Recipe Text

The recipe is intended for healing eye injuries or infections ('if þe yʒe be kitte in e whijt of e yʒe, or if e whijt be y-broke'): 'Take sarcacol, mastike, encense, sandragon, emachite. And tempere hem with sangrinary at is clepid sheppardis purse, or planteyn.' (p. 9). This extract is provided as a comparison between theoretical treatises and practical remedy books.

Evidence

"Take sarcacol, mastike, encense, sandragon, emachite. And tempere hem with sangrinary þat is clepid sheppardis purse, or planteyn."

Remarks

'Sandragon' refers to dragon's blood, a red resin commonly used in both medicinal preparations and as a pigment in manuscript illumination. The text discusses how learned medical recipes were adapted into vernacular remedy collections (p. 8-9). This specific recipe appears in a fifteenth-century English translation of Gilbert the Englishman’s Compendium medicinae (p. 8).