112 CATARACT. 



" Mr. Percivall says, ' that it will be found to be, invariably in horses, one 

 of the consequences of ophthalmia ; for, in cases where no signs of increased 

 action have attended its apparent formation, they msiy generally be discovered 

 to have existed at no very remote period preceding it. / do not mean to assert 

 that it never happens without inflammation: I have heard, and so far I believe, 

 that it does : hut it certainly is^ comparatively^ a rare occurrence ^ 



" Mr. Gibson says, ' that some (horses) have been foaled with cataracts or 

 pearls in their eyes.' " 



" Now, after all that has been said, we must come to this conclusion, that 

 here are three cases of cataracts that had existed for many months, and, in 

 some of them, most probably for a year or two, and that have entirely dis- 

 appeared, leaving the eye in a sound transparent state; and that were, in 

 every probability, produced without the usual symptoms of that specific in- 

 flammation which is generally the precursor of cataracts." 



" I am perfectly aware that it may be said that they have been foaled 

 so ; but I am not inclined to believe this, as it is most probable that they 

 would have been sooner absorbed. In my mind, the depositions were of far 

 more recent date." 



Mr. Cartwright concludes his comments with a hope that Mr. 

 Clay " will favour the public with the cases on which his opinion 

 (on the trial) was founded." 



In the mean time, Mr. Perry, Y.S., Swaffham, Norfolk — 

 prompted by the perusal of Mr. Cartwright's observations — in the 

 same VETERINARIAN, comes forward and says, " I have met with 

 many cases where there has been one or more inconsiderable 

 opaque spots on the lens that have not been preceded by inflam- 

 mation, whose presence I have never been able to satisfy myself 

 has in any way impaired vision :" adding the following case . — 



" Some time since I called on a friend who was anxious to shew me his 

 mare, not professionally, but because he had formed an exceeding high 

 opinion of her. When she was led to the door of the stable I discovered 

 she had two cataracts. I mentioned the circumstance to him, but he could 

 scarcely credit it ; and he assured me that the animal was bred by himself, 

 that she never had been ill in any respect, and that her eyes had ever been 

 bright and free from disease."— " I have generally," continues Mr. Perry, 

 " observed that cataracts, when formed of these small distinct bodies on the 

 lens although they have assumed a dense appearance, have been productive 

 of no mischief It is when they form in the centre of the lens, assuming the 

 appearance of rings, slightly clouding the transparency of the lens, and not 

 dense as the former, that they are to be dreaded ; and this appearance, I be- 

 lieve, to be always the effect of inflammation." — "A friend of mine, a surgeon 



