420 THE HORSE. 



FARCY. 



This disease appears to depend upon the development of the 

 same poison as in glanders ; but the attempt at elimination is made 

 in the skin, instead of the mucous membrane lining the nose. A 

 horse inoculated with glanders may exhibit farcy, and vice versd ; 

 BO that the essence of the disease is the same, but its seat is a 

 different tissue. 



Farcy usually shows itself first by one or two small hard knots 

 in the skin, called " farcy buds." These soon soften, and contain 

 a small quantity of pus ; but as this is rapidly absorbed, the lym- 

 phatics which convey it into the circulation inflame; and at a 

 short distance another bud is formed, and then another, and 

 another. These buds are usually met with in the thin skin cover- 

 ing the inside of the thighs and arms, or the neck and lips. They 

 vary from the size of a shilling to that of a half-crown ; and as 

 they increase in numbers, the skin becomes oedematous. In pro- 

 cess of time, the general system suffers, as in glanders, and the 

 horse dies, a miserable, worn-out object. No treatment can be 

 relied on to cure the disease; and as it is equally contagious with 

 glanders, every farcied horse ought at once to be destroyed. The 

 hard nature of the buds, and the thickened lymphatics extending 

 like cords between, clearly make known the nature of the disease, 



