272 MR. youatt’s veterinary lectures. 
curative treatment I am happy that I have far more to say than 
I had of glanders. This may seem strange. Glanders, a sim¬ 
ply local complaint, bids defiance to all our means and applian¬ 
ces ; yet when the virus *has spread through the frame, and af¬ 
fected the greater part or the whole of the absorbent system, it 
is occasionally manageable. Why, gentlemen, it is the very 
fact of its spreading that enables us to account for this. When 
it is simply local, all its virulence is concentrated on one small 
surface, and no medicine can be brought to bear with sufficient 
power on that plague-spot; but, when it begins to spread, and 
before the tissues which it now involves are too much injured 
and disorganized by its poison, its intensity is diminished. As 
inflammation of almost every character becomes diffused, it less 
powerfully affects the individual portions over which it spreads; 
it is diluted—lowered; and now, as it becomes in some degree 
constitutional, it may be attacked with greater hope of success. 
We have many medicaments which will exert a considerable 
general influence, but we have none that have a sufficient local 
determination and power. We can now find a counter-irritant, 
a stimulus, a tonic as diffusible and as energetic as the poison. 
But whatever, gentlemen, may be thought of this, however it 
may wear the appearance of mere hypothesis, the fact is un¬ 
doubted, that while glanders has baffled every practitioner in 
every age, farcy is, occasionally at least, under his controul. 
Let it be remembered, notwithstanding, that even here our power 
is cribbed, confined, and it is only during one short and fortunate 
moment that we are enabled to exert it with the slightest effect. 
The virus may be diffused, but it has not produced all its dele¬ 
terious influence; the new tissue is diseased, but it is not yet 
disorganized; the seed is sown, but it has not yet taken root: 
confirmed farcy is quite as untractable as the worst form of 
glanders. 
The local Treatment of Farcy .—Our treatment of farcy will be 
both local and constitutional. We can here fairly get at the seat 
of disease, at least while the superficial absorbents alone are 
concerned. The budding-iron, applied with sufficient severity 
on every knot or ulcer, will destroy the diseased surface, and 
the virus that lies upon it. A crucial incision should be first 
made through the integument, and then the iron will be brought 
perfectly in contact with the whole of the part. When the dis¬ 
ease has proceeded somewhat further than this, and ulcerations, 
and these threatening to be extensive, have appeared, the case 
should not be abandoned without a struggle. First in the list, 
and the most efficacious of all, stands the chloride of lime. By 
it the progress of decomposition will be partially or entirely 
