226 Notices respecting New Books. 
in a state favourable for the operation. Hence arises a very im- 
portant question: To what period of life does this particular 
practice apply ? To which I have a ready answer ;—That I have 
never failed in being enabled to effect this neeessary division in 
persons under forty years of age; very rarely in those between 
forty and fifiy, and have frequently succeded in persons in the 
most advanced periods of life. 
« Where the cataract is too hard and solid to admit of this 
immediate division, I do not attempt, as was my former practice, 
to effect its absorption by a frequent repetition of the operation ; 
but I at once extract it. This, however, is accomplished by a 
process totally different from that I have felt it a duty to de- 
precate ; a process which I must claim to be novel, and which 
happily attains the highly important desiderata which had been 
hitherto considered unattainable, while it obviates the many 
causes of failure which rendered the usual mode of extraction so 
generally unsuccessful. From the principle upon which it is 
founded, and the favourable results of its termination during the 
last two years that I have extensively practised it, I feel myself 
warranted in asserting that it possesses the utmost degree of ex- 
eellence which it is possible for extraction to arrive at, and that 
its general success will prove nearly as great as the operation for 
the removal of the soft cataract. To deter other persons from 
claiming it as their invention, or anticipating me in its commu- 
nication to the public (as was the case with my instruments and 
operation for the cure of the soft cataract, and my successful re- 
‘vival of an obsolete operation for artificial pupil), | have requested, 
Mr. M‘Laughlin to record on the Hospital books, the different 
stages of this operation, as he has seen me perform it on several 
of the pensioners. 
“<< J] trust that it will not be considered as irrelevant to the sub- 
ject of the present communications to inform you, that. tise 
are different modes of effecting the cure of cataract by the ab- 
sorbent practice. My friend and preceptor, the late Mr. 
Saunders, pursued a system different from that which I have so 
warmly supported in this letter. The operation which he pre- 
ferred had been performed thirteen times during six months on 
one of the pensioners (Edward Turner) without a removal of the 
disease. On one of my private patients the same operation had 
been performed seventeen times prior to my having been con- 
sulted, ¢em times on one eye, and seven on the other, in the 
course of as many months, and with no better success. In both 
instances | perfected the cure by a single operation on each eye ; 
so that, if these patients had originally been treated according 
to my mode of practice, ove, or at most éwo operations, would 
have 
