MONTHLY REVIEW OF LIT tilt ATURE AND ART. 695 



CATARACT; A FAMILIAR DESCRIPTION OF ITS NATURE, SYMPTOMS, 

 AND ORDINARY MODES OF TREATMENT. BY JOHN STEVENSON, 

 ESQ., OCULIST TO His MAJESTY, &c. LONDON, 1834. 



Cataract, a disease which consists in an opacity of the crystalline lens, 

 middle humour, or apple of the eye, comes home to every one's feelings ; 

 since it is liable, as the author elegantly remarks, "to assail without dis- 

 crimination, the rich and the poor the indolent and the laborious the old 

 the young the middle-aged, and even the infant at birth/' 



It has hitherto been regarded as incapable of relief " until it has attained 

 its last, worst, and most inveterate stage," and, during its more or less 

 tardy progress, never fails tc consign its unhappy victim to the compli- 

 cated miseries attendant on blindness. 



The object of the present little work which is freed ftt>m technicalities, 

 so as to become peculiarly interesting to the community at large, is to 

 enable the afflicted to recognize its existence, to portray, in plain and 

 intelligible language, the operations usually resorted to for its removal, 

 namely, those of couching and extraction but, above all, to describe a 

 mode of cure calculated to secure all the advantages which the ordinary 

 processes seek to obtain, while it obviates the difficulties and dangers inse- 

 parable from those in common use. 



The plan proposed the efficacy and superiority of which the author has 

 established, upon the firm basis of ample experience, instead of being, 

 like its predecessors, restricted to certain forms, and the advanced state of 

 cataract, can be rendered available to every variety, and at the earliest in- 

 vasion of the disease is productive of little or no pain, or inflammation, 

 and therefore, rarely requires bandages, local applications, or even con- 

 finement; and, what is of still greater importance, it accomplishes the re- 

 storation of sight in the highest attainable perfection, without occasioning 

 any subsequent mark, or visible derangement in the structure or appear- 

 ance of the affected organ. 



Such is a brief sketch of the contents of this small, but truly classical 

 and valuable publication, which affords satisfactory proofs that cataract, 

 for centuries esteemed one of the most formidable and terrific among the 

 numerous complaints of the eye, is at length stripped of its terrors, and 

 placed under complete control by the simplified and eminently successful 

 treatment, devised and matured by the genius and industry of Mr. 

 Stevenson. 



THK POPULAR ENCYCLOPEDIA ; BEING A GENERAL DICTIONARY OF 

 ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, BIOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND PO- 

 LITICAL ECONOMY. Reprinted from the American Edition of the 

 " Conversations Lexicon/' with Corrections and Additions, so as to 

 render it suitable to this Country, and bring it down to the present 

 time. WITH DISSERTATIONS ON THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF 

 LITERATURE, BY SIR D. K. SANDFORD, L.L.D., OXON : AND ON 

 THE PROGRESS OF SCIENCE, BY THOMAS THOBIPSON, M.D., F.R.S., 

 L. AND E., &c, &c. PARTS I. AND II., COMPLETING VOL. I. 



The appearance of the second part of this volume enables us to take a 

 more integral view of the work, and to obtain a more definite opinion of its 

 merits, with respect to those peculiarities which form its characteristics. 

 The facts that of the original " Conversations Lexicon" more than a 

 hundred thousand copies have been sold in Germany alone, and that it has 

 been translated into the Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Italian, and French lan- 

 guages, form a sufficient guarantee for the value and interest of the woik. 



