FOOTNOTES:
[693] Apparently the “Stoone in the fundement” of the Boke of St. Albans.
[694] K͟hat̤mī, the “Persian Hollyhock,” and the “Marsh-Mallow.” It is the latter that is used in medicine.
[695] Powdered sugar-candy is a simple and harmless purge for hawks. About eighty grains’ weight is a suitable dose for a female peregrine in good condition.
[696] There are two kinds of cummin seed, the black and the white: the former is used in cooking, the latter in medicine.
[697] Zift, “pitch,” and also a kind of ointment said to be made of black damar.
CHAPTER L
HECTIC FEVER OR PHTHISIS[698]
As mentioned in a previous chapter, the pulse of a human being in sound health has seventy-five beats to the minute, while a hawk in good health has a pulse of a hundred-and-twenty or a hundred-and-thirty. The pulse of all hawks is, however, not alike; for instance, as the shāhīn is faster and more powerful than any hawk, short-winged or long-winged, so, too, it has a faster pulse.
If you are unable to feel the pulse of a hawk in the second joint of her wing, or if after discovering it you find that its beating is too rapid to be counted, know that this is a symptom of hectic fever. Another symptom is that both by day and by night, she puts her head under her wing at unusual times. Another symptom is an inordinate appetite: she will gorge till the meat appears in her throat, and even then tear at meat and throw it away, there being no more room in her crop; but the more good food she eats, the thinner she gets.
Another symptom is that she is unable to cross her wings, but lets them droop one on each side of her tail, leaving her oil-gland and loins uncovered. Another symptom is that she drinks and bathes more than usual.
If the disease be not of long standing but has reached the first or second stage only, it may admit of cure; but if it has reached the third stage, you may set about procuring a new hawk for yourself, for her case is hopeless.
Now this disease arises from both humidity of temperament, and from heat: if from the former there will be a slight discharge from the eyes and mouth. Treatment: feed her twice a day on pigeons, larks, sparrows, black chickens, and pork. Item: give her daily one white pepper corn;[699] and if you notice an improvement increase the dose by degrees till you can give as many as five pepper corns. Item: roughly crush some ginger and give her daily with her food a small piece the size of a pea. Item: grind finely a piece of cinnamon equal in size to a pea, and give it to her in her food. If the disease arises from heat of temperament, change her perch to another room and thus give her a change of air. Feed on jerboa rats, land tortoises, and cockerels. Instead of water, give her to drink the juice of ispaghul,[700] and sprinkle dried ispaghul seed on her afternoon meal, giving her also feathers with her meat. When the heat of her temperament abates, you will find that she will no longer drink the ispaghul juice; you must therefore exert your falconer’s skill and get her to take in the morning about two or three mis̤qāl[701] of the juice with her meat.
If, on account of the abatement of her heat, she will in no wise touch ispaghul juice, you must resort to the device known amongst falconers as chālma. Now this is chālma: sever the thigh of a cockerel close to its body and draw back the skin to the knee-joint, reversing the skin in so doing. Next sever the skin at the knee-joint, and bind up the end firmly with silk. Into this bag put some ispaghul juice and also some of the seed, to the amount of an acorn in quantity, such a quantity in fact as the hawk can swallow with ease. While feeding your hawk, carelessly introduce the loose spare end of the skin bag, and get her to swallow it. If you cannot induce her to swallow it, you must use force. Every morning you must give her the juice of ispaghul, and every afternoon the dried seed; for this will cool her liver. She will cast up the seed every morning with the casting of feathers and bones. The quantity of ispaghul juice may be two or three mis̤qāl, but of the dried seed less than half a mis̤qāl so that she may find no difficulty in ejecting it with the morning casting. Please God, she will recover.
Item: take juice of long cucumbers and juice of small cucumbers,[702] and give it to her in the same way you would give ispaghul juice. First put down her throat a quarter of a mis̤qāl of manna; on the top of that administer the cucumber juice. Wait till she has muted three or four times and then feed her up for the day, giving her a moderate meal. Employ this treatment on three “alternate” days.
With these drugs, dose her thrice, on alternate days;
For that’s what the book of Greek medicine says.
On no account should you give her manna after feeding her, but she may be allowed to drink as much cucumber juice as she pleases. Item: give her daily, if a female goshawk, one nuk͟hūd[703] of camphor, and if a male goshawk, half that quantity: to a sparrow-hawk give a quantity proportionate to her size. Fatten up the hawk as much as you can.