CAUSES OF FARCY. 317 



three of them first shewed /arcj/, the fourth commenced with glan- 

 ders. Surmising that the virus or animal poison, or miasm, or 

 malaria, or whatever it may be, enters the blood, the part upon 

 which it takes local effect will be that probably in which, from 

 some cause or other, there resides the greatest amount of predis- 

 position or susceptibility ; and further than in this obscure manner 

 we shall find ourselves unable to account for any predilection mani- 

 fested by the disease. 



That farcy, like glanders, may take its rise from other causes 

 than contagion and contagious miasms — from such as are comprised 

 in our third, fourth, and fifth classes of exciting causes* — we have al- 

 ready stated there exist examples amply sufficient on record to shew : 

 the consideration being, as in the case of glanders, in respect to their 

 operation, whether the system of the animal under such circum- 

 stances ca,n be said to be in its natural state ; whether, on the 

 contrary, facts would not warrant our assumption, that some morbid 

 or peculiar susceptibility did not at the time exist in the lymphatic 

 system — something more than mere unhealthiness — to account for 

 causes of an ordinary nature having such extraordinary effects. 

 Some veterinarians believe farcy and glanders to be capable of 

 being " bred" or generated in the horse's system : if so, any 

 common causation might prove adequate to excite their develop- 

 ment ; and our position still holds good — that for causes of an or- 

 dinary or pure nature to be productive of the specific disease, they 

 must operate on a system in which the seeds of that disease al- 

 readv exist, or in which there is present a susceptibility of some 

 kind different from any existing in a healthy system, or even in 

 one under any ordinary condition of disease or unhealthiness. 



* Turn back to page 218. 



