102 PERIODIC OPHTHALMIA. 



Mr. E. Price, V.S., Cork, and will be found in the The VETERI- 

 NARIAN for 1841, from which I extract it. 



" A celebrated M.D., a great horse amateur, and fond, withal, of a little 

 bit of practice of his own whenever opportunity offered, had a mare that had 

 frequent and severe attacks of ophthalmia, but more particularly of the left 

 eye. On the last attack, and when inflammation was at the highest, he 

 determined to scarify the conjunctiva. He was everting the lid for that 

 purpose, when, from a sudden motion of the head, the lancet passed through 

 the conjunctiva, cornea and all ; the whole of the aqueous humour escaped, 

 and the eye was in a partially collapsed state. The doctor considered that 

 he had settled the business. However, to his surprise and gratification, at 

 the expiration of three days the eye had assumed a more healthy appearance, 

 and in a few days more the inflammation had entirely subsided^ and it has not 

 returned." 



CATARACT. 



Cataract — from y^uTu ^utt^^v, breaking or disturbing, and so 

 confounding, vision — is the term used by medical men to denote 

 any opacity of the crystalline lens or its capsule. The centrical 

 situation of the lenticular body in the eye, and the consequent 

 necessity of all the rays of light in their passage to the retina 

 making their transit through it, renders any impairment of its 

 transparency of serious moment to the animal, causing, as it does, 

 if not loss, imperfection of sight, and, by rendering him unfit for 

 many services required of him, very materially reducing his value- 

 Veterinary surgeons, on this account, have even a greater induce- 

 ment than surgeons have to prevent the occurrence of and seek 

 some remedy for cataract ; yet, unfortunately, are we in one respect, 

 if not in both, in means a long way behind the medical profession. 



Division. — A cataract is said to be either t7^iie or spurious. 



A True Cataract is that which has already been defined to 

 consist either in opacity of the lens itself or of its capsule, being 

 lenlicular in the former case, capsular in the latter : or it may con- 

 sist in the effusion of opaque fluid between the two, constituting 

 what has been called a Morgagnian or interstitial cataract. 



A Spurious Cataract is that which, from its aspect and situa- 

 tion, is likely to be mistaken for a true cataract ; and is found to 



