CONNEXION OF POLL-EVIL AND FARCY. 121 



for tHoir cases were always very bad ones. In this event, opportunity is af- 

 fordfd of employing both prescriptions in succession; but whichsoever is first 

 adopted, let it remain undisturbed from sixty to seventy hours, if the stitching 

 do not sooner burst. Sponge out the parts with warm water; cleanse away 

 the adjacent filth, and either repeat the same or proceed at <mce to the cure — 

 a determination the doctor will come to, according as the rottenness may have 

 sloughed off, and the inside of the abscess may present a healthy appearance, 

 or otiierwise. If it be quite clean, the adhesion of the parts will follow with 

 very little further care than applying the digestive ointment according to the 

 receipt in page 119,— or the following 



Digestive Ointment. — No. 2. 



Common turpentine, 4 ounces. 



The yolks of two eggs. — Mix these well, and 



add 

 Myrrh, in powder, 4 drachms, 

 Mastich, 2 drachms. 

 Tincture of myrrh sufficient to bring the whole to a proper 



consistence. 



Should the cure of the wound proceed too fast, the over luxuriant granula- 

 tions of new or proud flesh must be touched with caustic. 



But notwithstanding all that has been said above, it sometimes happens that 

 a totally different course becomes necessary, when abscess in the poll is con- 

 nected with another disease arising from the same vitiated state of the animal's 

 system, and the remedy for one of these will cure the other. Farcy is the cor- 

 respondent disease to which I allude, or rather I should say a tendency to 

 farcy, visible in certain scanty lumps or tumours on the body and legs: these 

 will run off sometimes by means of a copious discharge at the poll. More 

 frequently, however, the farcy is of too inveterate a description, and proves 

 that the whole mass of the animal's system requires correction, and that it 

 must be treated with medicines proper for the farcy, as well as the local affec- 

 tion of the poll. 



Peo[)le in general like to be borne out in their most novel opinions by those 

 of longer standing in society, and 1 confess myself one of those sort of people 

 as regards the doctrine of a vitiated or a corrupted state of the animal's system, 

 which it is absolutely necessary to correct by medicine before the cure of some 

 disorders can be effected. 1 strongly touched upon this to[)ic in the first book, 

 and at page 59, to which probably the inquiring reader will turn, and become 

 convinced with me that poll-evil may be no other than the critical abscess of 

 farcy; which farcy is a disease of the system, and is correspondent with glan- 

 ders, as poll-evil is with quittor, &c. The writer 1 shall quote as agreeing 

 with me, mainly, in this view of the subject, is Richard Lawrence. He says, 

 " the poll-evil is sometimes connected with a disposition in the hal)it of body 

 to farcy ; this may he known by the animal appearing universally [i. e. gene- 

 rally] unhealthy in his coat, the tightness of his skin, and also by small lumps 

 or swellings in different parts of his body, and particularly on the insides of 

 his legs. When it is ascertained, therefore, that the {)oJI-evil arises chiefly 

 ''rom a disposition to farcy, the mere operation of opening ttie anscess, and 

 using the dressings usually recommended, will not prove sufficient, without 

 the aid of medicine given internallj' ; liecause the al»cess, riot being then a 

 ■ IS* 



