¶ Nonnulli purgant domunculas gallinarum et nidos, ipsasque aves sulphure, asphalto, picea, [431] (πεύκαις.)[1] sed et ferri laminam aut clavorum capita atque lauri surculos imponunt nidis, ut quae ad arcenda prodigia (διοσημείας, tempestates[2]) omnia magnam vim habere videatur, Leontinus.

¶ Some people purify the little houses of the hens and the nests as well as the birds themselves with sulphur, bitumen, rosin (peúkais - with torches of pine wood) but they put in the nests also an iron foil or heads of nails as well as sprigs of laurel, since it seems that these things have the great power to keep away all the prodigious wonders (diosëmeías, the calamities), Leontinus - a geoponic writer.

¶ Ius de carne salsa gallinis mortiferum existimatur. item liquor e vini aut eiusdem faecis vapore vi ignis collectus, ni fallor. ¶ Ut gallinae vertigine afficiantur, Ὄρνιθας σκοτῶσαι: Frumentum maceratum lasere et melle mixtis, obijcito, Berytius. videtur autem hoc fieri, non tantum ad gallinas, sed alias etiam aves, feras praesertim, capiendas. quanquam haec inter ea quae de gallinis scribuntur in Geoponicis Graecis legantur{.}<,> Andreas a Lacuna hoc fieri ait, ut gallinae vertiginosae non fiant[3]. quod ego probare non possum, cum neque verba Graeca sic habeant: neque talis aliqua laseris vis legatur apud scriptores, sed potius plerisque animalibus prope venenosa. Pecora enim tradunt eo sumpto cum aegrotant, aut sanari protinus, quod fere consequitur, aut emori. si quando inciderit pecus in spem nascentis, hoc deprehendi signo: ove, cum comederit, protinus dormiente, capra sternutante. serpentes avidissimas vini admistum rumpere. praecipitasse se quendam ex alto cum in dentium dolore cavis addidisset inclusum cera.

¶ The broth gotten out of salty meat is regarded as lethal for the hens. Likewise the liquid gotten from the wine or from the vapor of its dregs through the fire, if I am not mistaken. ¶ So that the hens are seized by dizzies Órnithas skotôsai – To daze the birds: Feed them on wheat steeped in a mixture of juice of silphium and honey, Berytius - a geoponic writer. But it seems that this has to happen not to capture the hens, but also the other birds, above all the wild ones. Even though this is read among the things written in Greek Geoponics about the hens, Andrés de Laguna says that this is done so that the hens are not seized by dizzies. But I cannot agree, since neither the Greek words are expressing this, nor is read among the writers that the silphium has a similar worth, but rather that for most of animals it is almost poisonous. In fact they say that the livestock, when ill, after took it, either immediately recovers, which for the more happens, or dies. If an animal is waiting for a birth, this is inferred by this sign: a sheep, after ate it, immediately falls asleep, a goat sneezes. If mixed it makes to burst the snakes which are very avid of wine. Someone threw himself from above having placed it included in the wax in the caries during a toothache.

¶ Contra morbos gallinarum. Pullis iam validioribus factis, atque ipsis matribus etiam vitanda pituitae pernicies erit. quae ne fiat, mundissimis vasis, et quam purissimam praebebimus aquam. nam in cohorte per aestatem consistens, immunda, stercorosa, pituitam (coryzam, nostri vocant das pfipfe) eis concitat, Columella et Paxamus. Nec minus gallinaria semper fumigabimus, et emundata stercore liberabimus, Columella[4]. Inimicissima gallinaceo generi pituita, maximeque inter messis et vindemiae tempus, Plin.[5] Id vitium maxime nascitur cum frigore et penuria cibi laborant aves. item cum ficus aut uva immatura nec (videtur menda) ad satietatem permissa est, quibus scilicet cibis abstinendae sunt aves: eosque ut fastidiant efficit uva labrusca de vepribus immatura lecta, quae cum farre triticeo minuto cocta (Plinius simpliciter cibo incoctam dari iubet, alibi cum farre miscendam[6]) obijcitur esurientibus: eiusque sapore offensae aves, omnem aspernantur uvam, Columella[7]. Uvae florem in cibis si edere gallinacei, uvas non attingunt, Plinius (alibi[8]:) fortassis autem oenanthen[9] e Graeco uvae florem transtulit. A Dioscoride quidem memoratur genus vitis sylvestris sterile, quod fructum non profert, sed florem tantum quem oenanthen vocant[10]. Similis ratio est etiam caprifici, quae decocta cum cibo praebetur avibus, et ita fici fastidium creat, Columella. Praeservans contra coryzam seu gravedinem remedium: Origanum humectans (in aqua macerans) da bibendum, Leontinus.

¶ Against the illnesses of the hens. The chicks, when strengthened, and the mothers themselves, we have to keep from they getting sick because of that disaster represented by the pip. So that it doesn't occur, we will give to drink water as purest as possible in exceedingly clean containers. In fact during the summer remaining dirty and polluted by excrements in the barnyard, it makes to rise in them the pip (the cold, ours call it pfipfe), Columella and Paxamus, a geoponic. For the chickens the pip is very harmful, especially in the period between reaping and vintage, Pliny. This illness arises above all when the birds suffer from cold and shortage of food. Likewise when the fig or the grape are not still ripe and they are not (it seems an error) available up to be satiated of them, that is, foods from which the birds have to abstain: and in order that they have an aversion to them is effective the wild grape - or lambrusca, picked sour among the thorny bushes, and when they are hungry is given to eat cooked with fine flour of wheat (Pliny simply recommends that cooked is given in the food, in another passage to mix it with emmer): and the birds, disgusted by its taste, refuse every type of grape, Columella. The chickens, if in the feed they eat the flower of the grape, they don't attack the grape, Pliny (in another passage), in fact perhaps he translated flower of the grape from the Greek oinánthë. Indeed by Dioscorides a sterile type of wild vine is mentioned which doesn't give fruits, but only a flower they call oinánthë. The same thing is also applied to the caprifig - or wild fig - which, well cooked, is given the birds to be eaten, and so it causes an aversion for the fig, Columella. A prophylactic remedy for the catarrh or cold: Gives to drink oregano making it to dampen (making it to soak in water), Leontinus.

¶ Gallinacei generis pituitae medicina in fame: et cubatus[11] in fumo, si utique ex lauro et herba savina[12] fiat, (savinae herbae fumi adversus hunc morbum vis alibi[13] etiam ab eo celebrantur:) penna per transversas inserta nares, et per omnes dies mota. cibus allium cum farre: aut aqua perfusus, in qua laverit noctua: aut cum semine vitis albae coctus, et quaedam alia, Plin.[14] Idem ligustri acinos alibi hoc malum sanare docet, nimirum in cibo.[15] Pituita gallinis nasci solet, quae alba pellicula linguam vestit extremam. haec leviter unguibus vellitur, et locus cinere tangitur, et allio trito plaga mundata conspergitur, Palladius[16]. Sunt qui spicas allii tepido madefactas oleo faucibus earum inferant, (inserant,) Columella[17]. Alii mica (lego, spica) trita cum oleo faucibus inseritur, Palladius. Allia minutim scissa in calidum oleum inijciens, illis ubi refrixerint, ora gallinarum colluito. quod si illa etiam voraverint, efficacius restituentur, Paxamus. Allio rostri foramina inunge: aut in aquam ipsum allium conijciens, potandum dato, Leontinus. Aliqui in lotio humano elixantes allia, rostrum gallinae fovent: verum circumspecte, ne scilicet portio aliqua in oculos illabatur, Paxamus. Lotio ablue, (rostra nimirum et ora,) Leontinus. Quidam hominis urina tepida rigant ora, et tandiu comprimunt, dum eas amaritudo cogat per nares emoliri pituitae nauseam, Columella.

¶ The remedy against the pip of the chickens lies in abstinence from food and in sleeping perched among the smoke, especially if it is done with laurel and sabin herb - Juniperus sabina - (the power of the smoke of sabin herb against this illness is praised by Pliny also in another passage), after a feather has been transversally inserted in the nostrils and moving it every day. The food lies in garlic with emmer, or soaked in water in which a little owl bathed, or cooked with seeds of white bryony - Bryonia dioica, and some other remedies, Pliny. Still Pliny in a passage teaches that privet berries recover this illness, undoubtedly put in the food. In the hens usually arises the pip, that white film covering the fore extremity of the tongue. It is gently removed with fingernails and the area is sprinkled with ash and the sore, after has been cleaned up, is sprinkled with minced garlic, Palladius. Some put in their mouth cloves of garlic dipped in lukewarm oil, Columella. Is put in mouth a morsel (I say a clove) of garlic minced with oil Palladius. Placing garlic finely chopped in warm oil, when cooled apply it in the mouth of the hens. Since, even though they eat it, they will recover more quickly, Paxamus. Rubs the openings of the beak - the nostrils - with garlic: or give it to be drunk putting the garlic itself in water, Leontinus. Some people, cooking the garlic in human urine, pack the beak of the hen: but with caution, that is, so that nothing of this enter the eyes, Paxamus. Wash with urine (undoubtedly the beak and the mouth), Leontinus. Some soak the mouth with lukewarm human urine and keep it closed until the bitter taste doesn't force them to expel through nostrils the nuisance provoked by the pip, Columella.

Uva quoque quam Graeci ἀγρίαν σταφυλήν vocant, (staphisagria, Pallad.[18]) cum cibo (assidue, Palladius. sola, aut mista orobo, Paxamus[19]) mista prodest. vel eadem pertrita, et cum aqua potui data, Columella[20]. Munda etiam scilla, macerataque ex aqua, atque exhibita cum farina, idem praestat, Paxamus[21]. Sunt qui ex origano, hyssopo et thymo suffimentum molientes, caput gallinae exponant ut fumum excipiat, allioque perfricent eius rostrum, Paxamus. Atque haec remedia mediocriter laborantibus adhibentur. nam si pituita circumvenit oculos, et iam cibos avis respuit, ferro rescinduntur genae, (scalpello aperiuntur quae sub gena consistunt partes, Paxamus,) et coacta sub oculis sanies omnis exprimitur. atque ita paulum triti (subtilissime, Paxamus) salis vulneribus infriatur, Columella[22]. Vide supra etiam in C.

Also does good the grape which the Greeks call agrían staphylën - Bryonia alba or black-berried white bryony (Palladius writes staphisagria - Delphinium staphisagria) mixed with the food (given assiduously, Palladius says alone, or, as Paxamus says, mixed with vetch). Or the same agrían staphylën - Bryonia alba or black-berried white bryony - finely minced and given to drink with water, Columella. Also the scilla - perhaps Scilla maritima, sea squill - polished up and soaked in water, and given to eat with flour, gets the same result, Paxamus. Some people, preparing a fumigation with oregano, hyssop and thyme, place there the head of the hen so that receives its smoke, and they rub its beak with garlic, Paxamus. However these remedies are used for subjects only moderately ill. For if the pip surrounded the eyes and the bird at this point rejects the foods, the eyelids are incised with an iron (with a lancet are opened those areas lying below the eyelid, Paxamus) and the whole pus collected under to the eyes is pressed out. And subsequently on the wounds is rubbed a little bit of minced salt (Paxamus says that it must be minced very finely), Columella. You also see before in the paragraph C.

¶ Si pituita et sanies circumvenit oculos, etc. lege quae proxime retro ex Columella recitavimus. Si amarum lupinum comedant, sub oculis illis grana ipsa procedunt, quae nisi acu leviter apertis pelliculis auferantur, extinguunt (oculos, Crescentiensis, qui haec ita recitat, ac si remedia quae sequuntur, ex portulacae succo, etc. ad hunc ipsum affectum pertineant, quod mihi non probatur: et Paxamus etiam aliter habet,) {Columel.} <Palladius>. Oculos portulacae succo forinsecus, et mulieris lacte curemus: vel Ammoniaco sale, cui mel et cyminum aequale miscentur, (particulas affectas fovendo. caeterum ad umbram ducendae sunt, Paxamus,) Idem [Crescentiensis][23].

¶ If the pip and the pus surrounded the eyes, etc., you see what I quoted from Columella a little while ago. If they eat the bitter lupine, under their eyes grow some granules, which, if not removed by a needle after having delicately opened the pellicle covering them, they bring to the death (they cause the loss of the eyes, Pier de' Crescenzi says, who reports thus these things, and that if the following remedies, gotten from the juice of common purslane, etc. are suitable in this same illness, which to me doesn't seem right: and also Paxamus reports otherwise), Palladius. We have to treat the eyes with outer applications of juice of common purslane and milk of woman: or with ammonium chloride equally mixed with honey and cumin (warming the small areas, besides they – the birds - must be lead into the shade, Paxamus), still Pier de' Crescenzi.

¶ Pediculos gallinarum (quibus plurimum infestantur, praecipue cum incubant, Crescent.) perimit staphisagria, et torrefactum cyminum pari pondere, et pariter tunsa cum vino: et amari lupini aqua, (sylvestris lupini decoctum in aqua, Paxamus,) si penetret secreta pennarum, Palladius et Paxamus. ¶ Diarrhoea correptas curabis, si farinae (ἀλφίτων. polentae, Cornarius[24]) quantum manu apprehendi possit tantundemque ex cera vino laevigans, atque pastam coficiens, ante alium cibum obtuleris devorandum: aut pomorum[25] etiam, [432] cydoniorumve decoctum bibendum. Quae mala, etiam sub cineribus cocta, auxiliantur, Paxamus.

¶ The lice of the hens (by which they are quite a lot infested, especially when brooding, Pier de' Crescenzi) are killed by staphisagria and roasted cumin in identical weight, and crushed along with wine: and the water of bitter lupine (a decoction in water of wild lupine, Paxamus) if enters the recesses of the feathers, Palladius and Paxamus. ¶ You can take care of those struck by diarrhea if making homogeneous with wine how much of flour (alphítøn - barley meal - Cornarius translates it with polenta of barley) can be taken with a hand and as many of wax, and doing a mash of them you will give it to eat before any other food: or even if you will give to drink a decoction of apples or of quinces. These apples, also cooked under ashes, are helping; Paxamus.