Note E157 — 34.
Reading edition
"Medlars, called in Normandy and Anjou meslier, from Lat. mespilus, but as the verb mesler became in English meddle, so this fruit also, although a word of different origin, took a d for an s and became medlar."—Ibid.
"The Kernells [of medlers] bruised to dust, and drunk in liquor (especially where Parsly roots have been steeped), doe mightily drive out stones and gravell from the kidneyes."—Austen, Treatise on Fruit Trees, 1657, p. 84.