OF SICKNESSES OF HOUNDS 99 



ing, so that they may not break their claws in 

 running. Also when they be at sojourn, men 

 should lead them out every day a mile or two 

 upon gravel or upon a right hard path by a river 

 side, so that their feet may be hard. Hounds 

 also sometimes be chilled as horses when they 

 have run too long, and come hot in some water, 

 or else when they come to rest in some cold place, 

 then they go all forenoon and cannot eat, nor 

 cannot walk well, then should men let blood on 

 the four legs. From the forelegs in the joints 

 within the leg, from the hinder legs men should 

 let blood in the veins that goeth overthwart above 

 the hocks on the other side, and in the hinder legs 

 men may well see clearly the veins that I speak of, 

 and also in the forelegs, thus he shall be whole. 

 And give him one day sops or some other thing 

 comfortable till the morrow or other day. The 

 hounds also have a sickness in the yerde that men 

 calleth the canker, and many be lost thereby. 

 Men should take such a hound and hold him fast 

 and upright and bind his mouth and his four legs 

 also, and then men should take his yerde back- 

 ward by the ballocks and put him upward, and 

 another man shall draw the skin well in manner 

 that the yerde may all come out, and then a man 

 may take away the canker with his fingers, for if 

 it were taken away with a knife men might cut 

 him. And then men should wash it with wine. 



