How to cure farcy according to Jordanus Rufus

Hippiatrica, Parisinus greacus 2244, fo. 74v

 

Since I am publishing a translation (coming out on Halloween) of a fourteenth-century French version of Jordanus Rufus's De medicina equorum (c. 1250), the most influential veterinary treatise of its time in Europe, I thought I would share some extracts in the weeks leading up to publication.

The following one contains the description and treatment of farcy, a devastating bacterial disease. Farcy is the skin form of glanders, manifesting in the apparition of growths following the course of the lymph vessels. Those growths turn into ulcers and discharge pus. Glanders a highly contagious, often fatal bacterial disease, caused by the bacterium Burkholderia mallei. It results in ulcerating growths affecting the upper respiratory tract, lungs, and skin, with symptoms including high fever and thick nasal discharge. There are a short-term and a long-term form of the disease (common in horses), the latter manifesting in growths and ulcers on the skin and nose.

Those diseases were the cause of epizootics that killed many medieval horses, hence the desire on the part of owners and veterinarians to find effective remedies. 

The manuscript I translated this text from uses the word "ver" (worm) to describe the disease. Initially I assumed it was a metaphorical name, but some of the remedies seem to consider the disease as a literal worm that needed to be removed. You will find many references to the theory of humours that was an essential component of both human and equine medicine. according to Antique Western medicine, fluids present in the body, the balance of which determined a person’s temperament. The four main humours were blood, phlegm, choler (yellow bile), and melancholy (black bile). The need to balance the humours determined a number of medical treatments, including bleeding.

The style of the text is quite interesting, didactic, repetitive and often heavy-handed. It does not flow very well for a modern reader but I still decided to follow it because my goal was to give my readers insights into a lost medieval world. 

On farcy

First, there is, among some horses, an accidental disease, that happens perchance and is commonly called farcy. It afflicts the chest of the horse, or his thighs near his testicles. Then it goes down to his legs, makes them swells, and pierces them by making several small holes in several places. This farcy is born from bad humours that are superfluous and hot and are for a long time put together and compressed. Then, it comes or goes down to a gland that the horses naturally have on either side of their body, in the thighs, near the testicles. Therefore, by accident, this farcy causes a great pain in the heart because all the heat and all the humours congregate there, from all sides, because each similar thing naturally wants and desires its kin.  Then, because all the humours come together, the gland grows and, similarly, the chest is swollen, or the thighs are swollen, in front or at the back. It is then logical that the humours should break the flesh and the skin, by making several paths and several holes from which they exit. And if you do not give a remedy to this disease, the horse who is affected by this disease is forced expel all his humours through the wounds in the thighs, in the aforementioned manner. 

 

Remedy.

Against the aforementioned disease of the farcy, I shall give the appropriate cures and remedies. When you see that the glands that I have just described increase or swell on the chest or on the flanks near the testicles, you must bleed the horse from the usual vein in the neck or from the usual veins on either side of the chest or thighs. And you must make him bleed until his body is fully weakened, so that the bad humours and superfluities are sufficiently drained. Then, you must put suitable setons  on his chest or thighs, through which the bad humours will constantly exit, and you must shift and move them so that an opening is made to expel the bad humours that have come and gathered there due to the pain of the aforementioned gland. The bad humours always rush over to the places where the horse is in pain and, due to that, it is necessary that the horse should be in pain where the setons are applied. When the setons have been moved enough, you must remove them. Then, usually, the bad humours follow and leave the aforementioned gland and do not have the strength to go down to the thighs or to create swellings. And you must know that the aforementioned setons must not be shifted or moved before two days have passed, and then you must shift and move them every day, morning and evening, until two men have had enough of that. And you must first ride the horse at a slow walk, for quite a long time, and then you must not stop tiring the horse every day. And you must be careful that he should not eat hay or grass. So he must eat a little bit of another type of food, and therefore you must give him only spelt while he recovers his strength. Hay and grass do not decrease the humours but increase them. Moreover, the horse must always be put to rest in a cold place, at night.

Additional remedy.

If it so happens that the worm which is in that gland does not come out, despite the bleeding or despite the setons, and that the abundance of humous still makes the legs swell, then that gland, or worm, must be removed in the following manner: you must first split and slice the skin and the flesh lengthways until you have found the worm or the aforementioned gland, then you must rip out that gland or worm with your fingers and nails, cutting the flesh without touching anything else. And you must leave nothing of the worm or aforementioned gland. Then, when everything has been removed, you must take wet, clean tow and enough egg whites and put that on the wound so that it is fully covered. Then you must stich the wound so that the tow cannot come out. And if the wound is on the chest, you must tie a piece of wood on the front because of the wind and also you must not disturb the wound until the third day. Then, twice a day, you must move the tow that must be wetted with oil and egg whites, mixed and beaten together, and you must apply this remedy for nine days. After that, you must wash the wound with tepid wine which is a little bit warm. Then you must insert tow which has been cut into little bits and dipped and covered in powder inside the wound, which powder must be made in the following manner. You must take quicklime and the same quantity of clear honey, that are mixed together and beaten so that you can make a little cake out of them. Then this cake must be put in the fire for so long that it becomes coal. Then you turn it into a powder that is put as needed on the wound, until it is consolidated and closed. And while those things are being done, you must always move and shift those setons and work the horse by walking him in the aforementioned manner. But you must know that you must not ride the horse until the third day after the worm has been removed. Then you must ride and work him in the aforementioned manner. But for the worm to be removed more effectively, here is another remedy.

Other remedy.

After the skin and flesh have been cut in the aforementioned manner until the worm has been reached, you must sprinkle it with realgar according to what you need. And you sprinkle the worm only once, and then, you must put cotton   on the wound so that the realgar cannot come out. The worm will be strongly eaten away by the realgar, in the space of nine days. Then, when the worm is dead and eaten, you must use a remedy to heal the wound in the aforementioned manner.

Other remedy.

If you cannot dry out or restrain the bad humours in any of the aforementioned ways, to stop them from descending on the thighs and making holes, small blisters, and wounds, then you must take a hot iron and you must cauterise and burn the wounds and blisters, by first cauterising lengthways the main vein in the chest, which vein goes through the place where the worm is before descending to the foot. Then, when those holes and blisters have been cauterised, they must be sprinkled with quicklime, twice every day, but first you must remove the burn that has been made with a hot iron on those holes. 

Other remedy.

And you must know that if the thighs remain swollen because of the aforementioned worm, you must take leeches and put them all around the swelling of the thighs. You must remove as much the blood as you can with those leeches. Then, all the thigh must be plastered with vinegar and white chalk mixed together, and you must keep the horse in cold water, for a long time, morning and evening, every day. And this must be done every day until the thighs are slender like before.