To Kill Lice in Cocks or Hens.
Lice also are an infirmity common to Cocks and Hens, and usually proceeds from some one of these three things, either thro’ Poverty, and want of Food, or else from foul corrupt Food, or for want of Sand, Ashes, or the like, to bath, and cleanse themselves in.
Now they are cured by taking Pepper pounded small, and put into warm Water with which let them be well washed.
Of the Gout and its Cure.
The Gout is a certain swelling either in the Claws, or Ball of a Cock’s Foot; it is sometimes hard, and sometimes soft and poosy, but ever hot and burning, and is a very troublesome Malady, and seldom so thoroughly cured as to render the Cock fit either to Fight or Breed after.
’Tis a hereditary distemper in some Cocks; but in others it proceeds from Wounds and loss of Blood, especially when once they begin to grow old, and Humours to grow predominant in them.
I shall here for the Readers benefit mention a trial of Skill which I made upon a very choice Cock of my own, thro’ the help and assistance of a Gentlewoman whose extraordinary Skill both in Physic and Surgery was well known and greatly Celebrated by all that were acquainted with her.
Now the Cock was about two Years old, fresh, fine, and in good tune when I sought him, and he came of a rare Breed, and was delicately Shaped, and sparr’d as fine as most Cocks that ever I saw in all my Life; but for all this meeting with a blow in the Throat at his first coming into the Pit which choaked him up, and being also veined in the Foot at the same time, from which wound he lost a World of Blood, he was at last very hardly, and with much difficulty beaten.