SEAT AND NATURE OF FARCY. 321 



clothed by thick skin. This, I imagine, is owing to the scantiness 

 or density of the cellular membrane in such parts. 



The Character of the Farcy-bud is well described by 

 Rodet*. " Detach a moderate-sized farcy-bud of recent form- 

 ation, and before the softening process has commenced in it, and cut 

 into this firm, indolent, rounded, everywhere isolated, completely 

 formed bud, and its interior will be found composed of a hard, 

 fibrous, condensed, milk-white tissue, resisting the bistouri ; and 

 though exhibiting throughout, in certain cases, a homogeneous tex- 

 ture, is nevertheless, in other instances, found grooved and tra- 

 versed by some sanguineous capillaries. At a rather later period 

 than this, at the time when it commences growing soft in its centre, 

 and is about to become adherent to the skin, and sometimes before 

 it has adhered, we may observe (providing the recent internal pro- 

 cess of liquefaction be not completed) that its circumferent parts 

 still retain the white fibrous indurated texture which formerly con- 

 stituted the entire bud, and that within its interior is inclosed a 

 pultaceous matter of a yellow or dirty white colour, or else slightly 

 reddened. At length, when the process of softening is completed, 

 and before it is converted into abscess, we find that within the bud 

 several little morbid productions, united by lamina one to another 

 (arranged in concentric layers, and resembling adventitious serous 

 membranes slightly infiltrated, whose raw interior gives the ap- 

 pearance of ulceration to its inner surface), concur to form the walls 

 of the abscess, inclosing a white, thick, homogeneous matter, whose 

 consistence, varying a good deal, is at one time caseous, at another 

 puriform, at another analogous to that of thick jelly (bouillie)." 



The peculiar well-known spheroid shape of the farcy-bud, as 

 well as that of the pustule which succeeds it, is proved to be owing 

 to the existence of the valves within the lymphatic vessel, they 

 preserving their integrity while the coats of the lymphatic are 

 vanishing through absorption. Coleman said the valves were 

 insusceptible of irritation and consequent inflammation from farcy, 

 and alleged as one reason for this, their being structures organized 

 in a less degree than the tunics of the vessel. In some cases — in 

 such probably as would be regarded as unhealthy or ill-conditioned 



* Op. cit., page 215. 



