WATERY FARCY — EXTERNAL DROPSY, &C. 399 
effecting resolution) be our duty to bring it. A very common, 
indeed the usual, situation for a tumour of this description is the 
inner surface of the enlargement of the thigh. In this form the dis- 
ease has quite a local character, and might by an inexperienced 
hand be mistaken for a tumefaction of the inguinal glands, and pro- 
nounced to be farcy, or something else than what it was. Topical 
and circumscribed as its seat is, however, it is often an excessively 
painful affection, causing limping lameness, and intolerance of the 
slightest pressure. To shew that this is the same disease which 
in another instance attacks the entire limb, or even two limbs, 
I have known the same horse have it in the topical form one 
year, in the diffuse form another year. 
So far, there appears nothing about the disease but what under 
the name of watery farcy, or dropsy, or humour, has not at the 
hands of writers on farriery received every notice as regards 
its symptoms or appearances, causes, &c. “ The water farcy,” 
says Gibson, “ is of two kinds, one the product of a feverish 
disposition ; the other is dropsical, and of that kind which in man 
resembles the anasarca , when the water is not confined to the 
belly and limbs, but shews itself in several parts of the body, with 
soft swellings which yield to the pressure of the fingers,” &c. So 
far so good. But where are we to look, save in the works of 
modern veterinary writers, for any account of that affection of the 
mucous membranes which precedes, or accompanies, or follows 
the subcutaneous tumefactions. The better to explain what I 
mean, I bring forward the subjoined case : — 
July, 1841. A grey mare was seized some time in the course of 
the preceding night with prodigious tumefaction of the entire near 
hind limb, extending quite up to the body, and involving part of 
the udder. In the situation of the inguinal glands some promi- 
nences could be felt with the hand, something of the size and shape 
of oranges that had been crushed or flattened, which might by a 
superficial examiner have been passed for enlargements of those 
glands. Closer attention would have convinced him that they 
were nothing more than partial subcutaneous depositions of a 
sero-albuminous nature ; depositions, in fact, of the same kind as 
that to which the general swelling of the limb was owing ; there 
being simply this difference between them — that while the general 
or diffuse deposition is underneath the faschia lata, in these partial 
swellings it is immediately subcutaneous : hence the prominence 
of the one beyond that of the other. The tumefied limb had every- 
where a tense and elastic feel ; was unnaturally hot, and so pain- 
ful and tender that she would neither bear the pressure of the 
fingers upon it, nor move it without that limping or hopping lame- 
ness that denotes exquisite suffering. It wag. even with difficulty 
she could be got to limp from the stable into a box, a distance of 
