CHAP, v.] VALUE AS NURSES. 173 



feel quite at fever-heat. The blood, fresh-drawn from 

 the living bird, was a most virtuous remedy with the 

 old practitioners : and Willughby informs us that " A 

 live Pigeon cut asunder along the back-bone, and clapt 

 hot upon the head, mitigates fierce humours and dis- 

 cusses melancholy sadness. Hence it is a most proper 

 medicine in the phrensie, headache, melancholy, and 

 gout. Some add also in the Apoplexy. Our physi- 

 cians use to apply Pigeons thus dissected to the soals 

 of the feet, in acute diseases, in any great defect of 

 spirits or decay of strength, to support and refresh the 

 patient, that he may be able to grapple with and master 

 the disease. For the vital spirits of the Pigeon still 

 remaining in the hot flesh and blood, do through the 

 pores of the skin insinuate themselves into the blood of 

 the sick person now dis-spirited and ready to stagnate, 

 and induing it with new life and vigour, enable it to 

 perform its solemn and necessary circuits."* 



The modern substitute for a live Pigeon cut asunder 

 would be perhaps a hot foot-bath, or even a mustard 

 plaister, or a simple poultice. 



Several pairs of these birds are usually kept by 

 breeders, to act as nurses to those more valuable 

 Pigeons which are notoriously bad feeders of their 

 young. The mode is, to substitute a couple of the 

 eggs desired to be hatched, for those of any Dovehouse 

 pair that happen to have laid within a few days of the 

 same time. But it is worth knowing, that squabs of 

 about a fortnight old, which chance to be neglected by 

 their parents at that early period of their existence, as 

 now and then will be the case in the best-regulated 



* Page 183. 



