[131] _Agarys_. G. de F. _d'agret_, probably _agrimony_, Lat. agrimonia. It is bitter and styptic, and was much valued in domestic medicine; a decoction of it being used as a gargle and the dried leaves as a kind of tea, and the root as a vermifuge. [Illustration: HOW THE HOUNDS WERE LED OUT] (From MS. f. fr. 616, _Bib. Nat._, Paris) And then take five corns of spurge[132] and stamp them and temper them with goat's milk or with broth, and put it in the hound's throat to the amount of a glassful. And if he may not piss take the leaves of leeks and of a herb that is called marrubium album[133] and of modirwort[134] and of peritorie[135] and morsus galline[136] and of nettles and parsley leaves as much of the one as of the other, and stamp them with swine's grease therewith, and make a plaster thereof, and make it a little hot, and lay it upon the hound's yerde and along his belly, and that which is hard to understand ye shall find at the apothecary's, the which know well all these things. Also to the hounds cometh sores, that cometh to them under the throat or in other parts of the body. Then take ye of the mallows and of the onions and of white lilies,[137] and cut them small with a knife, and put them in a ladle of iron and mingle these herbs whereof I speak, and lay them upon the sores, and that shall make them rise, and when they be risen, slit them with a sharp knife. And when they be so broken, lay upon them some good drawing salve, and he be whole. Sometimes the hounds fight and bite each other, and then they shall take sheep's wool unwashed, and a little olive oil, and wet the wool in the oil, and lay it upon the hound's wound, and bind it thereupon, and do so three days, and then after twice each day anoint it with olive oil, and lay nothing upon it. And he shall lick it with his tongue and heal himself.[138] If peradventure in the wound come worms as I have seen some time, every day ye shall pick them out with a stick, and ye shall put in the wound the juice of leaves of a peach tree mingled with quicklime until the time that they be whole. Also it happeneth to many hounds that they smite the forelegs against the hinder wherefore their thighs dry[139] and be lost thereby, and then if ye see that it last them longer than three days that they set not their foot to the earth, then slit ye the thigh along and athwart within the thigh, crosswise upon the bone, that is upon the turn bone of the knee behind, and then put thereupon wool wet in olive oil as before is said, for three whole days. And then after anoint the wound with oil without binding as I have said, and he shall heal himself with his tongue. Sometimes a hound is evil astyfled,[140] so that he shall sometime abide half a year or more ere he be well, _and if he be not so tended he will never recover_. Then it needeth that ye let him long sojourn until the time that he be whole, until he is no longer halting, that is that one thigh be no greater than the other.