SPECIFIC OrilTIIAl.MlA. HM 



If the owner imagines that he has got rid of the disease, lie Avill ho. 

 sadly disappointed, for, in the course of three weeks or a month, either 

 the same eye undergoes a second and similar attack, or the other one 

 becomes affected. All again seems to pass over, except that the eye is not 

 so perfectly restored, and a slight, deeply-seated cloudiness begins to 

 appear ; and after repeated attacks, and alternations of disease from eye 

 to eye, the affair terminates in opacity of the lens or its capsule, attended 

 "with perfect blindness either of one eye or both. This affection was 

 formerly known by the name of moon-blindness, from its periodical return, 

 iind some supposed influence of the moon. That body, however, has not, 

 and cannot have anything to do with it. 



What is the practitioner doing all this while ? He is an anxious and 

 busy, but almost powei'less spectator. He foments the eyes with warm 

 water, or appKes cold lotions ; he bleeds, not from the temporal artery, 

 for that does not supply the orbit of the eye, but from the facial vein, 

 or he scarifies the lining ,of the lid, or subtracts a considerable quantity 

 of blood from the jugular vein. The scarifying of the conjunctiva, which 

 may be easily accomplished without a twitch, by exposing the inside of tho 

 lids, and di^awing a keen lancet slightly over them, is the most effectual of 

 all ways to abate inflammation, for we are then immediately unloading 

 the distended vessels. He places his setons in the cheek, or his rowels 

 under the jaw ; and he keeps the animal low, and gives physic or fever 

 medicine. The disease, however, ebbs and flows, retreats and attacks, 

 until it reaches its natural termination, blindness of one or both eyes. 



Cart-horses are the most subject to this disease, and the period at which 

 it generally appears is from the age of three to five ^^ears. He has then 

 completed his growth. He is full of blood, and liable to inflammatory 

 complaints, and the eye is the organ attacked from a peculiar predisposi- 

 tion in it to inflammation, the nature and cause of which cannot always 

 be explained. Every affection of the eye apjDearing about tliis age must 

 be regarded with much suspicion. 



As this malady so frequently destroys the sight, and there are certain 

 periods when the inflammation has seemingly subsided and the inex- 

 perienced person wotild be deceived into the belief that all danger is at an 

 end, the eye should be most carefully observed at the time of purchase, 

 and the examiner should be fully aware of all the minute indications of 

 j^revious or approaching disease. 



There is nothing which deserves so much attention from the purchaser 

 of a horse, as the perfect transparency of the cornea over the whole of its 

 surface. The eye should be examined for this piirpose, both in front, and 

 with the face of the examiner close to the cheek of the horse, under and 

 behind the eye. The latter method of looking through the cornea is the 

 most satisfactory, so far as the transparency of that part of the eye is con- 

 cerned. During this examination, the horse should not be in the open air, 

 but in the stable, standing in the door-way and a little within the door. If 

 there be thickening of the Hds, or puckering towards the inner corner of the 

 eye; a difference in the apparent size of the eyes; a cloudiness, althox;gh per- 

 haps scarcely perceptible, of the surface of the cornea or more deeply seated, 

 or a hazy circle round its edge ; a gloominess of eye generally, and dullness 

 of the iris ; -vWth the surface of the corpora nigra ragged and hanging 

 do"\vn, or a minute, faint, dusky spot in the centre, with or without minute 

 fibres or lines diverging from it, we may feel assured that inflammation 

 has occurred at no very distant period, and there will be every probability 

 of its return. There is one little caution to be added. The cornea in its 

 natural state is not only a beautiful transparent body, but it reflects, even 

 in proportion to its transpai-ency, many of the rays which fall upon it, and 



