ON FARCY. 
271 
is usually to be traced to its origin; and it is most intense about 
the neighbourhood of the fetlock. 
The swelling of farcy is yet more sudden. The horse is well 
to-day, to-morrow he is gorged from the fetlock to the sacrum; 
and although there are not the same redness and glossiness, there 
is exquisite tenderness : the horse cannot be touched, and there 
is burning heat in the limb, and much general fever. It is si¬ 
multaneous inflammation of all the absorbents of the limb. 
However, when I see the sudden swelling from grease which I 
have described, I am a little suspicious of that which may be 
mingling with grease, or for which grease may prepare the way ; 
and you will have many cases in which these sudden swellings 
attributed to grease, and evidently connected with it, terminate 
in farcy. 
Surfeit .—There is a pustular eruption named furfeit; I hardly 
knew why, until the erudite Mr. John Hinds enlightened the 
darkness of my understanding, by telling me that “ it is con¬ 
nected with mange , and that both terms are of French origin; 
surf ait or overdone being tantamount to mange , from manger , 
to eat, in its imperfect tenses—the effect of eating too much, 
which has brought on the disease.” Well; this surfeit consists 
of a pustular eruption—surfeit bumps, as they are called—but 
terminating in desquamation, not in ulceration ; and although 
numerous, yet irregularly placed, never following the course of 
the absorbents, but scattered all over the skin. 
Anasarca. —You will distinguish it likewise from anasarca— 
local dropsy of the cellular membrane—and particularly from 
that enlargement beneath the thorax which has the strange ap¬ 
pellation of water-farcy, but having no character whatever of 
farcy, and by this false title leading to many a blunder, and to 
mischief. Anasarca is debility; not inflammation of the ab¬ 
sorbents. It is an indication of general debility to a greater or 
less extent, and, properly treated, soon disappears, except that 
occasionally at the close of some very serious disease it indicates 
the breaking up of the constitution. 
Farcy Contagious. —Of the contagiousness of farcy there can 
be no doubt; but it does not commence until ulceration has taken 
place. The matter of farcy alone is the medium of communicat¬ 
ing the disease. It does not, however, appear to be so contagi¬ 
ous as glanders. A farcied horse does not by far so often infect 
his companions as does the glandered one. Still it is right to be 
on our guard, and to take every possible precaution. The mode 
of infection is probably the same, namely, the virus being brought 
into contact with some wounded or abraded surface. 
Curative Treatment — Why Farcy admits oj Cure. —01 the 
