THE SPECIFIC IxeLaum.vrtos TILE EVES, or (as the farriers phrase it) •• the moon blindncss," it is which we have to dread. It would appear that this disease made its attack during the night; for it commonly happens that the groom discovers " the bad eye" the first thing in the morning. The eye has either a heavy gloomy aspect, and seems smaller than the other, from the circumstance of the drooping of the tipper lid, or it is quite shut up; the haw projects, and the tears wet in their overflow the under lid. All this leads the groom to imagine that the horse must have hurl his eye somehow or other in the course of the past night. On looking into the eye, it is found to be so dull and muddy, that we can hardly discriminate any thing; its hue is evidently changed, being of' ano ther shade, and lacking lustre when compared with the eye in health. his disorder is one of the in jurious consequences of warm and foul stabling. It is periodical in its course; leaving the eye for 'a month or more, and then returning, or else attack ing the other one, which has been until then in health: from observing this curious circumstance it was that the old farriers denominated it moon or lunatic blindness.
The treatment hitherto found most adapted to this destructive malady (for it is one which seems to set our art almost at defiance) consists in draw ing a large quantity of blood from the side of the neck corresponding to the affected eye; in briskly purging; in inserting a rowel under the jaw; and in using the poppy fomentation to the eye. As soon as the inflammatory action is on the decline, we may use simply cold spring water, or goulard water to the eye, and occasionally drop into it a little of the vinum opii, and succeed that by the use of salt or white vitriol water, in the proportion of an ounce of the former or a dram of the latter to a pint measure. To remove any remaining opa city, salt finely powdered, or sugar or glass may be blown into the eye once a-day. Although after this manner, we may seem to subdue or parry off a first, and even a second attack; still will the dis order in all probability, sooner or later return, and in the end almost to a certainty be productive of blindness.
FAitcy is a well-known disease, consisting in chains of' lumps or ulcerations of the skin, with or without swellings of the limbs or other parts in Wilk they are seated. It is remarked that mostly breaks out in those parts where the skin is thinnest, which accounts for its commonly attack ing the inside of the thigh; but the pathological or true explanation of this is, that along those parts take their course the absorbent vessels, in which (and not in the veins) the disease is seated. The
ordinary appearances of farcy are chords of lumpy or knotty swellings under the skin, taking the course of the superficial veins, which chords are traceable into large kernels or glandular tumours either in the groin or breast, or else under the jaw, according as the disease affects the hind or fore leg, or the side of the head. The knots (which by the farriers are denominated prey-buds) are at first hard to the feel, and give little or no sensibility on pressure, so that the animal suffers you to handle and squeeze them; but by degrees they acquire tenderness, inflame, feel hotter than the skin sur rounding them, and at length begin to grow soft; at which period they also swell in bulk, and even tually burst, and give issue to a purulent matter. The lumps, after they have burst, leave behind them, a chain of small, circular. nasty, foul sores. Should the hind or fore leg be farcical, the entire limb becomes swollen, hot, and tender, according to the progress the disease makes; the head or neck, or any other part similarly affected, will like wise become tumefied. In some cases, the farcied parts become dropsical: the skin, which is often prodigiously puffed up, acquires a soft doughy feel; which anomaly of common or ordinary farcy, the farriers have named watery farcy.
In the first instance, farcy. particularly if the at tack be a violent one, should be met by bleeding and purging; after NV 11 it is most successfully treated by Ionics. Having well cleared out the body, administer evei y day from half an ounce to an ounce of green vitriol, and ten grains of corro sive sublimate, made into a ball with half an ounce of Venice turpentine. Exercise. good air, and nu tritious diet, will be found to be useful auxiliaries. In regard to the local treatment, should the chord ed parts be hard and insensible to the feel, blister them; and that will probably disperse them: if not, it will promote the suppurative action. As soon as the knots have burst, apply a heated " budding" iron to them (which is an iron made with a blunt conical point,) so as to destroy the diseased sur faces, and dispose them to take on healthy action. Afterwards, in the progress of their healing, they may be dressed with a solution of blue vitriol, or else an alum lotion.