Of the Sleeping-evil.
THis is a disease forcing the Beast continually to sleep, whether he will or not, taking his memory and appetite clean away, and therefore is called of the Physitians Lethargus, it proceedeth of abundance of flegm moistning the brain overmuch. It is easie to know it, by the continual sleeping of the Horse. The cure of this disease according to Pelagonius, Vegetius, and others, is in this sort: Let him bloud in the neck, and then give him this drink: Take of Camomile and Mother-wort, of each two or three handfuls, and boil them in a sufficient quantity of water, and put thereunto a lit∣tle Wheat-bran, Salt and Vinegar, and let him drink a pinte of that every day, the space of three or four days together. It is good also to perfume and chafe his head, with Thyme and Pennyroyal sodden together in Vinegar, or with Brimstone and feathers burned upon a chafingdish of coals under his nose: and to provoke him to neese, by blowing Pepper and Pyrethre beaten to powder, up into his nostrils: yea and to anoint the palate of his mouth, with Honey and Mustard mingled together, and in his drink, which would be always warm water, to put Parsley seed, and Fennel seed, to provoke urine. His legs also would be bathed, and his hoofs filled with Wheat-bran, Salt, and Vinegar, sod∣den together, and laid to so hot as he may endure it, and in any case suffer him not to sleep, but keep him waking and stirring, by continual crying unto him, or pricking him with some sharp thing that cannot pass through the skin, or else by beating him with a whip, and this doing he shall recover.