133 



WORM IN THE EYE. 



The earliest veterinary account, I believe, published in this 

 country of the extraordinary phenomenon we are about to con- 

 sider, was that communicated to me, in June 1825, by my relation, 

 Mr. Charles Percivall, then veterinary surgeon to the 11th Light 

 Dragoons, stationed at Meerat, in India ; though in the year pre- 

 ceding this, Mr. Twining, surgeon to the commander-in-chief in 

 India, had sent a paper on the subject to the Medical Society of 

 Calcutta, which appeared in the Society's Transactions, and was 

 thence extracted and published in The VETERINARIAN for 1828, 

 together with a communication Mr. Twining received, after the 

 reading of his paper, from Mr. Gibb, surgeon to the Honourable 

 Company's stud at Poosah, who had not seen Mr. Twining's paper. 

 This gentleman, from his situation at Poosah, where the climate 

 was such as appeared favourable to the disease, had, during a resi- 

 dence of sixteen years, he thinks, on an average twenty cases an- 

 nually : more, perhaps, than fell to the lot of any other individual 

 in Hindostan. The same volume of THE Veterinarian, also, 

 contains an " Essay" on the subject in question from the pen of 

 Mr. Molyneux, V. S. — at present practising in London — which 

 was likewise presented to the Calcutta Medical Society. In The 

 Veterinarian for 1834, Mr. Skeavington, then at Devonport, and 

 late veterinary surgeon to the Bengal Horse Artillery, favoured us 

 with his observations, while in India, concerning this singular dis- 

 ease; since which a single case has been published in The Lancet, 

 for 1836, which occurred to Mr. JefFreson, surgeon-oculist ; and 

 was, from that journal, transcribed into The VETERINARIAN for 

 1837. This, I believe, will be found to comprise all that has ap- 

 peared in print, from original authority, on the subject of worm in 

 the horse's eye ; and to the authors of the several accounts herein- 

 before named do we stand indebted for the knowledge we at the 

 present time are in possession of concerning the curious phenome- 

 non ; myself being under especial obligations to those gentlemen, 

 from being, through them, enabled to lay the following detail before 

 my reader : — 



