(V) The flocks and herds should be well supplied with litter and their feet kept clean. If litter is short, haul in oak leaves, they will serve as bedding for sheep and cattle. Beware of scab among the sheep and cattle. This comes from hunger and exposure to rain.
(LXXII) To prevent the oxen from wearing down their hoofs, anoint the bottom of the hoof with liquid pepper before driving them on the highroad.
(LXXIII) Take care that during the summer the cattle drink only sweet and fresh water. Their health depends on it.
(XCVI) To prevent scab among sheep, make a mixture of equal parts of well strained amurca,[36] of water in which lupine has been steeped, and of lees of good wine. After shearing, anoint all the flock with this mixture, and let them sweat profusely for two or three days. Then dip them in the sea. If you have no sea water, make salt water and dip then in that. If you will do this they will suffer no scab, they will have more and better wool and they will not be molested by ticks.
(LXXI) If an ox begins to sicken, give him without delay a raw hen's egg and make him swallow it whole. The next day make him drink from a wooden bowl a measure of wine in which has been scraped the head of an onion. Both the ox and his attendant should do these things fasting and standing upright.
(CII) If a serpent shall bite an ox, or any other quadruped, take a cup of that extract of fennel, which the physicians call smyrnean, and mix it with a measure of old wine. Inject this through his nostrils and at the same time poultice the wound with hogs' dung.[37] You can treat a man the same way.
(CLX) If a bone is dislocated it can be made sound by this incantation. Take a green reed four or five feet long, split it down the middle and let two men hold the pieces against your hips. Begin then to chant as follows:
"In Alio. S.F. Motas Vaeta,
Daries Dardaries Astataries Dissunapiter"
and continue until the free ends of the reed are brought slowly together in front of you. Meanwhile, wave a knife above the reeds, and when they come together and one touches the other, seize them in your hand and cut them right and left. These pieces of reed bound upon a dislocated or fractured bone will cure it.[38]
But every day repeat the incantation, or in place of it this one: