CATARACT. 117 



Mr. W. C. Spooner, V.S., Southampton, " thinks it Ims 

 been by this time pretty well proved that cataracts do occasionally 

 become absorbed;" and relates the following "singular case cor- 

 roboratory of this doctrine," in The Veterinarian for 1834 : — 



" On the 23d of May last— 1834— I was requested by Capt. Ward, of Twy- 

 ford, to see his old mare : she had inflammation in one of her eyes, which 

 was dim and very susceptible of light. On opening the eyelids / distinctlfj 

 perceived a small cataract. On inquiry, Capt. W. informed me that some 

 years since she had several attacks of inflammation, but not one for the last 

 three or four years; and the groom said he had observed the speck for 

 several years. I bled the mare from the jugular vein, gave her a dose of 

 physic, and desired that the eye be kept wetted. I heard nothing more of 

 the case till July 7th, when the mare was brought to my forge to be shod. 

 I examined her eyes^ and coidd perceive no speck of any kind^ or impediment in 

 vision. Query, Was this a case in which the absorbents were roused into 

 action by the stimulus of inflammation, and the cataract was thereby removed? 

 But, let us suppose that this mare had been sold in May last, and brought 

 to me to be examined by the buyer, and that I had pronounced her unsound, 

 and that an action was the consequence ; — I should have stated in court that 

 I had examined her, and had found a cataract; but against me, perhaps, 

 there might be arrayed two or three veterinary surgeons, who might have ex- 

 amined the mare within a short period, and pronounced her sound : the re • 

 suit would have probably been that the jury would have given their verdict 

 against my employer, and have charitably considered that, if there had been 

 any impediment in vision about the case, it existed in my eyes instead of in 

 the mare's." 



Mr. Richard Rawlins, sen., V.S., Bristol, in The Vete- 

 rinarian for 1835, has favoured us with opinions on this subject 

 " founded on more than twenty years' extensive practice," which 

 we must not fail to profit by. " I never saw," he says, '' a single 

 case of cataract without previous disease of the eye; but a cir- 

 cumstance occurred in the autumn of tlie last year — 1831 — which 

 did for awhile surprise and stagger me. There was a case in 

 which cataract did seem to appear most suddenly, and without 

 any previously observed disease,'* 



On the 18th of October a horse was purchased, warranted sound, of a 

 dealer in Bristol. The horse, it was remarked at the time, had a cough ; 

 but it was answered, that was " a mere trifle," and a special warranty should 



