304 VARIETIKS OF FARCY. 



closes the scene. But the sub-acute disease may run into the 

 chronic stage or variety ; all apparent morbid action may cease, or 

 become suspended, the parts, the seat of disease, growing callous 

 and insensible, the general health and spirits becoming quite re- 

 stored, and the animal able to resume his labours. In this flatter- 

 ing condition the patient is too often pronounced and believed to 

 be " cured ;" when, in reality, the serpent is but " scotched, not 

 destroyed :" one day, it is more than probable it will raise its head 

 again, and assume a more virulent aspect than ever. 



In addition to these varieties of intensity and progress or course, 

 there is a kind of farcy which has a more superficial or cutaneous 

 seat, and which farriers call button farcy, from the buds being 

 smaller and more circumscribed than in the deeper-seated species, 

 which they look upon as a more malignant and intractable dis- 

 order, commonly having its seat upon the insides of the limbs. 



Mr. Blaine has noted another, a third variety of farcy ; one, 

 he says, " which is usually passed over by authors, and which is 

 also one wherein the poison is self-generated, probably. It often 

 puts on a chronic, protracted form, and shews itself by the 

 affected horse becoming suddenly lame in one limb, the tumefac- 

 tion and heat of which recede and attack the other limb in the 

 same manner. In this way he (the horse) may remain for months 

 with his health very slightly affected; at length, however, the dis- 

 ease assumes a more marked character, — some of the swellings ul- 

 cerate, and glanders eventually closes the scene*." 



Symptoms. — Farcy, like glanders, is in general ushered in by 

 tokens of ill health. The horse, perhaps, is said by the groom 

 to have '' caught cold," or to be " humoury." He is out of 

 spirits, and loathes his food, or eats it only in part, and with little 

 appetite; his coat has a roughened, lustreless aspect; his pulse is 

 quicker than natural, and his mouth warmer ; his hind legs, per- 

 haps, fill a little, or one may swell and not the other, and he 

 evinces some stiffness in his movements, or may be actually lame 

 in one of his limbs. I have known horses so lame from farcy, be- 

 fore the disease had in any local or characteristic form declared it- 



* Op. Cit. at pap;e 218. 



