120 THE ORANGE COUNTY 



that useful defence of the eye should never, if possible, be 

 removed. 



Common Ophthalmia 



will yield as readily to cooling applications as inflammation 

 of the same organ in any other animal, but there is another 

 species of inflammation commencing in the same way as the 

 first, and for awhile apparently yielding to treatment, but 

 which changes from eye to eye, and returns again and again, 

 until blindness is produced in one or both organs of vision. 

 The most frequent cause is hereditary predisposition. The 

 reader cannot be too often reminded that the qualities of the 

 sire, good or bad, descend, and scarcely changed, to his off- 

 spring. How 



Moon-Blindness 



was first produced no one knows, but its continuance in our 

 stables is to be traced to this cause principally, or almost 

 alone; and it pursues its course until cataract is produced, 

 for which there is no remedy. 



Gutta Serena (Palsy of the Optic Nerve) 



is sometimes observed, and many have been deceived, for the 

 eye retains its perfect transparency. Here, also, medical 

 treatment is of no avail. 



The serous membranes are of great importance. The brain 

 and spinal marrow, with the origins of the nerves, are sur- 

 rounded by them; so are the heart, the lungs, the intestinal 

 canal, and the organs whose office it is to prepare the gene- 

 rative fluid. 



Inflammation of the Brain. 



Mad staggers fall under this division. It is inflammation 

 of the meninges, or envelopes of the brain, produced by 

 over-exertion, or by any of the causes of general fever, and 

 it is characterized by the wildest delirium. Nothing but 

 the most profuse blood-letting, active purgation, and blister- 

 ing the head, will afford the slightest hope of success. 



Tetanus, or Lock-Jaw, 



is a constant spasm of all the voluntary muscles, and particu- 

 larly those of the neck, the spine, and the head, arising from 

 the injury of some nervous fibril that injury spreading to 



