THERAPEUTIC TREATMENT OF FARCY. 353 



111 cases in which no impression can be made upon the indurated 

 buds, either by iodine or other ointment, or by bUsters, it is a 

 practice with some veterinarians to score them, or rather tlie skin 

 in which they are enveloped, with the firing-iron, CilABERT, a 

 French veterinarian, suggested that we should extirpate them : and 

 D'Arboval has adopted the farriers' practice of old, as being pre- 

 ferable when the situation of the buds admits of it, of destroying 

 them by caustic. " Many of our common farriers," writes Gibson, 

 " use arsenick or corrosive sublimate, after opening the buds, putting 

 a small quantity into each, which answers in cases where there are 

 but few, and these not situated near large bloodvessels, joints, or 

 tendons. This they call coring out the farcy T In excising the 

 buds, D'Arboval cautions us to be careful to cut away all the 

 scirrhous cutis round about them, since, if left, it might engender 

 a disposition to ulceration ; and afterwards he recommends that 

 the wounds be seared with the actual cautery. Buds that are 

 superficial admit readily of extirpation ; such, however, as are 

 deep-seated can only be safely, or with any prospect of success, 

 excised before they have spread into and become incorporated 

 with the contiguous tissues. 



In the majority of cases of farcy, however, it happens that, 

 instead of diminishing in size and growing harder in consistence, 

 the buds plump up and become soft, and at length turn into jmstides : 

 and once a pustule formed, it will ripen and burst, and turn into 

 an ulcer. As soon, therefore, as we perceive that it is out of our 

 power to prevent the suppurative stage, it becomes our duty to 

 contribute all we can to its promotion. For this purpose, foment- 

 ations may be used to the parts; poultices likewise, could we 

 manage to apply them. The patient's diet also must be improved 

 in this stage : . he should no longer feed on mashes, but have 

 scalded oats, carrots, turnips, linseed, &c. When the pustules 

 are ripe, some practitioners make a point of opening them; others 

 suffer them to burst and discharge their contents spontaneously. 

 The old or farriers' mode of opening ripe farcy buds is with the 

 actual cautery, the heated hudding-iron ; and it is a practice still 

 in vogue with many very respectable veterinary surgeons. In 

 this manner the contents of the pustule are, as it were, fried by 



