ON FARCY. 
145 
Hurtrel D’Arboval has advised the employment of decoctions 
of hops and wormwood, and gentian and bark, in order to restore 
to the sanguineous system the predominance which it had lost. 
The school of Lyons endeavoured to withdraw the animal from 
the influence of the predisposing causes. 
The Egyptians apply the cautery: it is the only weapon with 
which they oppose the disease. They do not cauterize the 
buttons, the ulcers; but they strangely endeavour to draw from its 
lurking-place the tissue really affected, by lines scored with a red- 
hot iron, and which they apply without principle and without 
mercy. This method of proceeding is attended by no advantage. 
It often aggravates the evil, and it brings on complications of 
disease and inflammatory engorgements, which hasten the death 
of the animal. 
As soon as farcy appears, the Wahabites send the horses to 
little huts, where proper persons are charged with their treat¬ 
ment. They are as much as possible placed in localities where 
they w'ill be exposed to little heat. These men begin with 
purging the horse, by means of a fossil common in the Hedjar. 
They form it into balls, w'hich M. Gand has seen. The dose is 
said to be about three drachms. We have never been able to pro¬ 
cure this salt, which is said to possess a strong acid taste. Dried 
figs, soaked in water, are their principal food. Every day at noon 
each horse has a certain quantity of camel’s milk. The ulcer¬ 
ated surfaces are washed with the same salt that is given as phy¬ 
sic, diluted in water. The health of the animal beginning to be 
restored, he is sent off to the mountains. The inhabitants consi¬ 
der that farcy may be cured, if it has not been too long neglected. 
Our situation in Egypt has enabled us to see a great many 
cases of this disease. Out of nearly a hundred horses, which 
the infirmary of the veterinary school always contains, half of 
them are affected with farcy. We have employed, in turn, every 
medicine, and we have tried to its full extent that which the 
skilful or the unskilful have recommended. The disease, how¬ 
ever, proceeded, and our patients died, only to be replaced by 
others whom the same fate awaited. Bleedings, local or general, 
were never followed by any apparent benefit, whether they were 
had recourse to early or late in the disease. Mercurial preparations 
administered internally, and whether in moderate or excessive 
doses, and continued for a long space of time, were never at¬ 
tended by any advantageous result. During two months we kept 
two horses on meat broth, and they died like the rest; the dis¬ 
ease, however, was previously far advanced in them, and the 
Arabs had been applying the fire to various parts of the l)odv 
that were considerably tumefied. Every means that the wildest 
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