£8 On the Restoration of Sight, 



medicines, but Nature continued the operation which she 

 had begun, and the lady at last saw objects as clearly and 

 distinctly as any one else. I do not know if the black sub- 

 stance had completely disappeared. 



Other facts of the same or an analogous description have 

 been published by oculists ; but they always thought, as we 

 did, that it was to a restoration of the pellucidity of the cry- 

 stalline, in whole or in part, that we ought to attribute the 

 more or less perfect restoration of sight. 



Veterinary surgeons and farriers have also informed me, 

 that horses which have lost their sight from a cataract, had 

 recovered it in proportion as this cataract had become less 

 extended. But can it be nothing else than the return of 

 the transparency of the crystalline which occasions the re- 

 storation of sight ? I think that this is the effect of another 

 cause, — it is the diminution, even the entire destruction of 

 the crystalline which takes place in certain eyes, as well by 

 the consequence of the alteration of the crystalline which 

 had given place to the cataract, as also by various other 

 causes, particular to the crystalline, or common to the va- 

 rious parts of the body. 



The crystalline has been often sought after in vain in the 

 eyes of such persons as had died a lbng time after being 

 couched for the cataract, but no traces of it have ever been dis- 

 covered : it had been completely destroyed. A human eye, 

 which I dissected a short time ago, was deprived of the cry- 

 stalline, which had been destroyed perhaps by some morbific 

 cause; at least, I discovered no cicatrix upon the transparent 

 cornea which might afford reason to suppose that it had been 

 ever operated upon. Are there not alterations which hinder 

 the crystalline from nourishing itself sufficiently to retain its 

 volume ? 



The moment the crystalline is displaced, it becomes like 

 a strange body ; it is decomposed, diminished in volume, 

 and destroyed. Abandoned in its residence, after its cap- 

 sules have been opened by a crucial incision, and having 

 been altered itself in its anterior beds by the needle of the 

 oculist, is it not decomposed, injured, and even annihi- 

 lated? Was it not for this reason that the lady upon whom 



the 



