Ink's Anatomy (Private)

[font=century gothic]Inkdrop sat in the middle of the medicine den and yawned. He was going to teach his apprentices some herbs. Three sounded about right, considering he was the only medicine cat and he was still pretty young and was still learning a couple things himself. "Okay, this is going to be fuuuun! So, you guys, tell me what you know. What do you do if a cat comes in with a thorn in the paw? No infection, just the thorn."

[font=century gothic]"Yep yep! But if there is an infection - you'll know if there's some yellowish stuff on the edges and it smells nasty, and if the wound is sort of swelling - then you can use chewed up horsetail or chervil leaves. You use chervil root for bellyache."

Inkdrop padded over and touched the horsetail with his paw. "This is horsetail. It's pretty tall and bristly, but the stem is pretty soft," he said. "And here's chervil. It smells nice, and it has big leaves and white flowers." He pointed out the chervil. "Make sure to pick up chervil by the root. You normally use juniper berries for bellyache, but chervil root is good, too."

"Sound good so far?"

[font=century gothic]"Okee, another question! Boom, what herb do you use when a cat is really sad and upset? Like, you can't cheer them up by yourself?" He didn't expect them to know, he just wanted to ask a few questions to see if they did or not.

[font=century gothic]"Yup, you guys are great," Inkdrop said, and tapped the small stock of thyme with his paw. "How 'bout rat bites? Those are more common in ShadowClan than other places, 'cause of the junkyard and stuff," the young medicine cat meowed. "I mean, you could use other herbs used for infection, but this one herb is more effective for rat bites."

[font=century gothic]"Yeah, it's burdock," Inkdrop said with a nod. "Dock is used for making an animal's fur slippery, which can be used in a bunch of different situations. You can also rub it on a wound to sort of clean it and make a poultice stick better," he added. "Now, I'll tell you guys how to repair a broken bone. Some broken bones like ribs you can't do anything about, so you gotta tell the cat to rest and do some very light exercises. It should heal by itself, but it'll take a while."

"For a bone that's broken in the leg area, you get some rush and comfrey - comfrey mainly if the bone is sticking out. Rush are these long sticks that are purple at the top and have these little leaves. You can pull the leaves off if you want." He pointed both the rush and the comfrey root out. "Comfrey plants have big leaves, colorful curvy flowers and a sharp sort of smell. But you need the roots, so focus on gathering those."

"All riiight, so first you put the bone back in place. Feel along for where the break is and pop the bones together again. It'll hurt, so you can give the cat a poppy seed. If the bone is sticking out, then you need to carefully push it back in. Yeah, it's messy, but it needs to get put back into place. Chew up the comfrey root and spread it on the area. Then put some rush along the leg and bind it with thick cobwebs - this is called setting the leg." He paused to take a deep breath and think. "It changes on the situation, really, but that's it."

"Oh yeah, you could also use a stick instead of rush and, uh, broom instead of comfrey. Broom is this leafy plant with yellow flowers. If you have nothing else, scrape off a few strips of bark to set the leg. But rush and comfrey are the best."