GLANDERS AND FAROf. 159 



lingular in his opinion as regards the treatment of this disease, 3 

 quotation from Mayhew is here introduced : 



" Farcy is, by the generality of practitioners, regarded as a 

 more tractable disease than glanders. Certainly the course of the 

 disorder is arrested much easier ; but, to cure the malady, there is 

 a constitution to renovate and a virus to destroy. Is it in the 

 power of medicine to restore the health and strength, which have 

 Leen underfed, sapped by a foul atmosphere, and exhausted by 

 overwork? Tonics may prop up or stimulate for a time; but the 

 drunkard and the opium-eater, among human beings, can inform 

 us that the potency of the best selected and the choicest drugs, 

 most judiciously prescribed, and carefully prepared, is very lim- 

 ited. Sulphate of copper, iron, oak bark, cayenne pepper, and 

 cantharides, probably, are the chief medicines the practitioner will 

 give. With such the horse may be patched up ; he may even re- 

 turn to work. But at what a risk ! He carries about the seeds 

 of a disorder contagious to the human species, and in man even 

 more terrible than the quadruped. Is it lawful, is it right, to try 

 to save an avaricious master the chance of a few shillings, and 

 incur the risk of poisoning an innocent person? The author 

 thinks not. Therefore he will give no directions how to arrest 

 the progress of farcy. The horse once contaminated is, indeed, 

 very rarely or never cured. The animal, after the veterinary sur- 

 geon has shaken hands with the proprietor and departed, too often 

 bears about an enlarged limb, which impedes his utility, and, at 

 any period, may break forth again with more than the virulence 

 of the original affection." 



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