CATARACT. 109 



work near large fires, were more subject to cataracts than other 

 persons ; and he mentions that he had had two patients who were 

 instantly seized ivith cataract at the very time they were thus 

 employed." 



Another reason for doubting or discrediting the accounts given 

 of these cataracts, is, that they have vanished or become absorbed, 

 and left the eye as bright as ever. But, may not that which has 

 come quickly go quickly 1 It does not appear to me that one is 

 more irreconcileable with the laws of physiology than the other ; 

 although I am ready to admit, that cases proving the absorption of 

 true or genuine cataract are hardly to be found on authentic record. 

 Indeed, we have the respectable authority of Mr. H. W. Cooper, 

 Surgeon to the Honourable Artillery Company — in The VETERI- 

 NARIAN for 1841 — for saying, that, in the human subject, a decided 

 opacity of the lenticular capsule has never been observed to disap- 

 pear. This would almost drive one to think that the opacities 

 taken for cataracts, in some of the cases which will be subjoined, 

 must have been spurious in their nature : spurious or true, how- 

 ever, I firmly believe myself that there they were, in the situations 

 in which they were discovered, and that there they were not when 

 they came to be looked for again. 



The Trial of Roberts versus Croft it was that gave rise to 

 more information being elicited concerning cataract than, prior to that 

 occurrence, was to be found in the whole annals of veterinary medi- 

 cine : records were searched, and by-gone cases and observations 

 recalled to memory, and the result was, the publication of a number 

 of interesting facts and opinions, which, with some yet to come, 

 will one day or other set the subject of cataract in a much clearer 

 light than that through which we have been compelled to view it 

 up to the present day. 



The horse, the subject of this trial — a full account of which will 

 be found in The VETERINARIAN for 1832 — was, after being sold 

 to Mrs. Roberts, incidentally discovered to have a small cataract 

 in one of his eyes, of the existence of which Mr. Croft, the vendor, 

 a surgeon, was not only entirely ignorant, but for which he felt 

 quite at a loss to account, he having bred the horse, and been there- 



