116v

[MarcoP]

The 2012 transcription and translation of the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. by Johannes Albus are available on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..

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The manuscript's last page - a recipe

The text on You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of the Voynich MS has been subject to a significant amount of analysis and speculation. The present paper presents a new transcription and tentative reading of this text. It is written in a mixture of mostly Latin, some old German (and two unreadable words in Voynichese) representing the memorandum of a medieval medical recipe. The rather abbreviated style of the Latin words is typical for such a recipe. With the illustrations on the margin referring to the text, the recipe´s ingredients as well as the title point out to a wound plaster with a billy goat´s liver as its main remedy. This supersticious cure with a liver can be traced back to the tradition of antique medicine and Pliny the Elder´s Natural history, while the addition of oil and beewax made it a soap-like balm, that was widely in use for plasters.

Transcription with abbreviations and omissions in square brackets
poxleber umen[do] putriter. 
+ an[te] chiton olei dabas + multas + t[un]c + t[an]ta[a](?) cer[a]e + portas + M[ixtura] + 
fix[a] + man[nipulis] IX + mor[sulis] IX + vix + alt[e]ra + matura + 
... ... (two ciphered words) pals [ein]en pbrey so nim[m] gei[s]smi[l]ch O

Translation
Billy goat´s liver for wet rot 
At the membrane you gave oil, then you bring a lot of the much(?) wax, in a 
fixed mixture: 9 hands full, 9 morsels (from) the only just double mature 
... ... (two ciphered words), squash it into a paste, then take goat´s milk.

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I just saw a recipe from the Pseudo Apuleius Platonicus herbal that includes oil and goat's fat as a cure for articular pain. A goat is illustrated on the same page in Florence You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. 1275 ca.

Transcription:

xxii nomen he[r]be ieribulbu[m] 
nascit[ur] ubiq[ue] c[ir]ca sepes sordidi[s] et des[er]tis 

i ad articuloru[m] dolorem 
he[r]ba[m] ieribulbu[m] cu[m] adipe cap[ri]nu[m] et olei libras ii 
in se pisatum et conmixtum uteris dolorem 
mirifice tollit


Translation:

22. The name of the plant is Ieribulbum [possibly You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.]
it grows almost everywhere, often in vile and desert [places]

1. [As a cure] for articular pain.
The Ieribulbum plant with goat's fat and 2 pounds of oil,
mashed and rubbed on the abdomen, wonderfully
removes pain.

A very similar version of this recipe appears in this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. of Pseudo Apuleius (where the plant is called "hieribulbum", recipe XXI).