DISEASES OF THE FEET[731]
THE “PINNE”[732] IN THE FEET
Know that this disease is of two kinds, and that gazelle-hawks are
peculiarly subject to it; for a keen _bālābān_ will stoop with force
at the hard head of the gazelle, thereby injuring her feet;[733] from
the blow a small vein in the sole of the foot gets torn or bruised,
and the blood under and on the surface becomes corrupt, and soon black
spots appear in the sole: one day the foot is well and one day bad,
till the beginning of Spring, when the trees put out new leaves; then
the “pinne” too breaks bounds and soon cripples the hawk completely.
The second kind also arises from a bruise: the spot swells, but
there is no discolouration, nor any sign of black spots. This kind
is called by the Arabs _ḥafā_,[734] and the cure of _ḥafā_ is easy.
_Treatment of the first form_, _i.e._, “_mīk͟hak_”: the sole is sure
to be hot, so make a dough of ispaghul seed and put it on a piece of
blue[735] cloth, and at nightfall bind it on your hawk’s feet. Watch
her for half an hour lest she tear it off before the ispaghul has
dried and adhered to the foot. In the morning rip up the cloth, and
let your hawk rest, having previously, by spreading cotton-wool seed,
prepared a place of rest for her. If she lie down, so much the better.
In two or three nights’ time the swelling will disappear, but the
discolouration will still remain. Continue the treatment nightly till
the ispaghul poultice comes away with that blackness adhering to it.
_Item_: thread a needle with ten or twelve horse-hairs, and pass it in
from the outside[736] of the foot and bring it out at the “blackness”
in the foot. Knot the horse-hairs in such a way that you can pull
them upwards and downwards. Two or three times daily, pull the hairs
to induce a flow of the foul matter. Do this for forty days, or for
two months, till the black core moves with the hairs. By the time the
upper knot will pass through the foot and come out at the under side
of it, she will be cured. _Item_: pierce the discolouration in the
sole with a needle, forcing in the needle for the distance of two or
three barley-corn lengths. Then stick to the eye of the needle a bit
of touch-wood,[737] the size of a filbert; set a light to it and let
it burn till it is consumed to ashes; then withdraw the needle and
anoint the place with oil of walnuts. In two or three days’ time the
blackness, together with the core which is the real corn, will come
away. Do nothing to the hole that will be left, except anoint it.
_Item_: if both feet are affected remove the jess from the worse of
the two, and break the tarsus bone.[738] Keep the hawk in a dark room
on a bed of cotton-seed, in depth about four fingers’ breadth. The
room must be so dark that the hawk cannot distinguish night from day.
Once a day anoint her leg with clarified wax and mummy-oil.[739] It
is not necessary to set or bind the leg. If your hawk is young, say
of one or two moults, her leg will set in twenty days. If old, say of
ten or fifteen moults, it will take forty days. The younger the hawk
the sooner will the leg set. In this respect a hawk resembles man; for
the broken bone of a five-year-old child will join in five days, of a
ten-year-old child in ten days, of a fifty-year-old man in fifty days,
and of a ninety-year-old in ninety days. However, a man of ninety
years will, during these ninety days that he is laid up, contract so
many other ailments that he will die.
Should an old man break a limb,
Leave him, take no care of him,
Since before his bones can mend
Further ills procure his end.
The same rule applies to hawks, too. Now, as soon as you see that
when you throw the meat to your hawk she grasps it with her broken
leg, change the jess from the sound to the unsound leg, and then break
the former as you did the latter. _Item_: (and the best remedy of all)
take a broken piece of a mercury-backed mirror, grind it very fine,
and sift it through taffeta, so that it is as fine as collyrium of
antimony. Then mix with it the gall of a black goat, and make it into
the consistency of an ointment. Bind this ointment on to the feet of
your hawk in the morning, removing it in the evening. After removing
it, let her rest for half an hour. Again bind on this poultice,
removing it in the morning. Again, after half an hour, bind on a fresh
one and leave it on till sunset. That blackness will by this time have
been drawn out and will protrude somewhat. Take hold of the blackness
with tweezers and gently pull it. By the dispensation of the Creator
the corn will come out by the root.[740] Fill the cavity left, with
powdered antimony, and see that the feet are kept quite dry. This
cure was invented by the writer and has been proved by experiment.
_Item_: take fresh hot cow-dung and add to it double the quantity of
salt.[741] Apply the mixture thickly to the perch, and renew twice
a day, morning and evening, for a month or forty days. She will be
entirely cured. Doubtless you will say that to keep a hooded falcon
on such a perch may be easy; but what about an unhooded yellow-eyed
hawk? This is my answer: take your hawk, _t̤arlān_, _qizil_, or
sparrow-hawk—or whatever she may be—into a dark room and drive into
the wall, as a perch, a wooden peg of proper thickness,[742] but not
so round that the cow-dung will not stand on it: the perch should be
broad. The hawk should be so tied to this perch that when she bates
she will remain hanging. For the first day or two she must be watched
by your man, for the heat of the cow-dung and salt will certainly
make her “bate.” When she “bates,” go not near her; let her “bate”
till she is exhausted: then, when she is quite still, and has ceased
beating her wings, raise her and replace her on the perch. Every
time she “bates” act in this manner. After a little, she will put up
with the burning in her feet, finding it a lesser evil than hanging
head downwards. In two or three days her feet will become numbed and
she will no longer feel pain in them, and will therefore cease to
“bate.” You must put on such a quantity of cow-dung that the hawk’s
feet are buried in it. The fresher and warmer the cow-dung, the more
efficacious the effect and the speedier the cure.[743] You should, in
fact, tether a cow near the “mew” so as to have a fresh supply of dung
ever at hand.
Now as regards the second form of this disease, called _ḥafā_, the
symptoms are the same as in _mīk͟hak_, except that in _ḥafā_ the
blackness is absent from the sole of the feet. _Treatment_: bind
on her feet, a few nights, powdered ispaghul seed as previously
described, and she shall be cured. _Item_: pound up a little of the
skin or rind of sweet pomegranate,[744] and add thereto a little salt.
Apply this a few times to the perch, in the manner described, and the
disease will disappear. _Item_: take acorns and gall-apples and pound
them together, add camel’s urine to make a dough, and bind on to the
feet a few times, and she will be cured. _Item_: take camel’s urine
and green ispaghul,[745] and pound together; boil slightly; remove
and place on the ground to cool. When luke-warm, immerse the hawk’s
feet for half an hour, and the ill will be removed. _Item_: take her
on the fist and carry her every day, and lure her. The glove and
“carriage”[746] will cure her better than anything else.
If she’s ill, let the falconer carry the hawk;
Both man and bird will get good from the walk.
_Item_: keep her on a rough stone or rock, instead of on a perch.[747]
I have myself tested these remedies for _mīk͟hak_ and _ḥafā_, and I
have certainly found them beneficial.
FOOTNOTES:
[731] “When yowre hawkes fete be swollyn she hath the podagre.”—_Boke
of St. Albans._ “Podager” is said to be gout in the feet (from _pod_
“a foot”), but the name was probably applied to the initial stage of
the “pinne in the feet” of other writers.
[732] _Mīk͟hak._
[733] “Bating” on a hard perch during the moult when the hawk is
heavy, will also cause this disease. Also a hard perch when the
pressure always falls on the same spot, will produce it. Hawks moulted
on sand do not suffer from it.
[734] _Ḥafā_, Ar., is “the sole of the foot of man or beast being
chafed or worn down by travel.”
[735] _i.e._, dyed by indigo, which has medicinal properties.
[736] The top?
[737] _Qū_, and colloquially in Turkish _qāv_, “touch wood.” _Yābis
mis̤l^u ’l-qāv_, “dry as touch wood,” is a common Arab saying in
Baghdad.
[738] _Qalam_, the “stalke” of old English falconers.
[739] _Mūmiyā_, “mummy,” is a name in Eastern bazaars now applied to
several forms of asphalte, mineral pitch, Jew’s pitch, and maltha.
Formerly the name was applied to Egyptian mummy; and by the vulgar at
the present day this mysterious medicine is supposed to be the extract
of negro-boy boiled in oil. “Mummy-oil” is made by mixing equal parts
of mummy and clarified butter over the fire.
[740] Ordinary poultices or repeated fomentations will produce the
same result.
[741] An Indian remedy, whether good or ill, I cannot say, is to keep
the hawk on a lump of rock salt instead of on a perch: _vide_ page
175, note 747.
[742] In India a sparrow-hawk’s perch is usually a wooden peg driven
into the mud wall of the living-room.
[743] The translator tried this treatment with success, but it was
difficult to keep the tail-feathers from being stained a green
_k͟hākī_ colour.
[744] _Anār-i shīrīn_, “sweet pomegranate,” is a particular variety.
[745] _Ispand-i sabz_, “green (or black) _ispand_,” is the variety
used in medicine: _ispand-i zard_ or _isfarza-yi zard_, “yellow
_ispand_,” is used to keep off the evil-eye. _Ispand_ is, I am told by
an authority, the seed of Peganum Harmala, one of the rue family.
[746] _Bahla_, “hawking glove”: _gardānīdan_, “carrying.”
[747] In the _Booke of Kepinge of Sparhawkes_, a cold stone is
mentioned as a cure; _vide_ also note 741, p. 174.