FAMILY
.—See Black Legs and Betting.
FARCY
,—except the GLANDERS, is the most unfortunate and destructive disease to which the horse is subject. It is infectious, and may be communicated from one horse to another, or to the whole stable, where many stand together. As it frequently attacks different subjects in a different way, (according to the state and condition of the horse at the time of attack,) so it has afforded opportunity to the fertile and ingenious to extend and define it to various kinds of FARCY, though they are but different shades and gradations of the same disease.
The very first traits of this disorder are too distinguishing to be mistaken; although the attack may be made either one way or the other. The subject is, in general, dull, heavy, sluggish, and seemingly oppressed with lassitude and debility, for some days previous to any external symptoms of disease; in a short time after which, small purulent pustules appear, with a sort of seeming eschar upon the apex of each, running along the veins in a kind of continuity, bearing no ill affinity or resemblance to a bunch of grapes a little diversified in size. Upon any of these eschars, or scabs, being removed, they are followed by a thin bloody ichor in some; but in others, by a fœtid, viscid, corrupted matter, not unlike a mixture of honey and oil, when brought into all possible incorporation.
As the disorder advances to a more inveterate malignity, these pustules burst, the scab or eschar exfoliates, and each becomes a virulent, ill-conditioned ulcer. In many instances the progress is extended with incredible rapidity; and the larger vessels, with their inferior ramifications, are soon universally affected; holding forth a very unpromising prediction of early extrication. A tolerable opinion may be formed of the mildness or threatened severity of the disease by the nature of the attack: if appearances are partial, (that is, attached to any particular spot,) without a speedy extension to different parts of the body, or its extremities, the case may be considered in its then infantine state favourable; and the proper means should not be delayed to counteract its farther contamination of the blood and juices: on the contrary, should a daily increase of the eruption be observed, spreading itself in various directions along the plate-vein, and down the inside of the fore-arm, under the belly, proceeding on both sides the sheath, and down the inside of each thigh, a cure may be considered very distant and uncertain; involving a doubt for prudent deliberation, whether the alternative of DEATH may not be preferable to the chance of cure, at an expence (if effected) very, very far exceeding the value of THE HORSE.
Experience, and attentive observation, tend to justify an opinion, that when the FARCY makes its first appearance, in the way described, it is then of the species received by infection, and that it has lain dormant some time in the circulation. When it makes its attack upon one particular part, in a previous tumefaction, and subsequent suppuration, (extending no farther than the quarter in which it originates,) it may then be considered a degree of the same disorder, retaining within itself much less virulence than the former, and to have been produced by the morbid state of the blood, and predominant tendency to disease; holding forth a well-founded prospect of CURE, if the case happens to fall into the hands of a judicious and scientific practitioner, who well knows the peculiar property of medicine, upon which alone the success depends.
Those writers who have industriously divided and sub-divided the FARCY into so many different diseases, have not noticed a disorder (or rather a complication) partaking of the joint symptoms of both GLANDERS and FARCY; from which circumstance it has, by the best and most experienced practitioners, been denominated, FARCY GLANDERS, and is, in its attack, progress, and termination, precisely as follows. One or more swellings appear upon some part or parts of the body, where, after attaining a certain size, they become indurated, making no farther progress toward maturation. Here NATURE seems counteracted in her own efforts, and, by some inexplicable revulsion, the head is almost immediately and severely affected; TUMEFACTIONS appear under the jaws; the SWELLINGS increase in various parts and degrees about the eyes and mouth; a most incredible discharge comes on from the nostrils, discoloured and offensive beyond description; in which state, bidding defiance to every interposition of ART, or administration of MEDICINE, the animal lingers a few days, and, if not previously dispatched, (as in fact it ought to be,) DIES a mass of complete putrefaction.
FARRIER
—is the appellation by which a person is known, whose occupation it has hitherto been considered to execute the joint office of furnishing shoes for the PROTECTION of the FEET, and the BODY with MEDICINE for the cure of disease. It has been, from its original formation as a business, the most dangerous, laborious, and least compensated, trade (or profession) of any in the kingdom; consequently none but the most indigent or illiterate (from the eaves of a cottage, or the walls of a workhouse) could be prevailed upon to undertake it. In proof of which, it is a well known fact, that, for a century past, not more than one in TWENTY of its practitioners, in either town or country, has ever been enabled to leave a clear twenty pounds to his family at the time of their decease. Recent circumstances have, however, occurred, to give the PRACTICE of FARRIERY a new complexion; but, unluckily, in the extreme; for the appearance of "The Gentleman's Stable Directory" a few years since, and the success of its author in his indefatigable endeavours, and energetic exertions, to promote a reformation in the shamefully neglected, erroneous, and cruel system of FARRIERY, constituted such a blaze of national emulation, that the institution, erection, and establishment, of a PUBLIC SCHOOL, has rendered practitioners in FARRIERY (newly ycleped "Veterinary Surgeons") as numerous as the necessitous medical adventurers in almost every town and village of the kingdom. See Veterinary College.