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Specks upon the eye are in one respect a more 

 serious, or at least a more annoying defect than 

 total blindness. A careful rider may by possibility 

 prevent a blind horse from charging a stage-coach, 

 but the most careful horseman is exposed to con- 

 stant annoyance by the starts and checks of a horse 

 that retains his sight only to a partial degree. If 

 the speck is in the front of the eye, he shies at a 

 carriage ; if it is lateral, he jumps at a straw. To 

 detect a speck, the eye should be viewed, not in 

 front, but from behind ; standing at the shoulder 

 of the horse, so as not to b^ deceived by the strong 

 reflection of the light on the surface of the cornea. 

 The speck is usually the cicatrix left by a small 

 ulcer, produced by inflammation. There is not a 

 dealer or an ostler in England who will not tell 

 you that it'is of no consequence; it has been caused 

 by a blow, a fly, and so forth : and if it could be 

 clearly ascertained to be no more than the effect of 

 such an accident, I should not attach much impor- 

 tance to it, if it were not veiy large ; for I have 

 known such specks gradually disappear by absorp- 

 tion : but it is impossible to ascertain this ; and 

 therefore the safest course is to assume that natural 

 irritability, with consequent inflammation of the 

 eye, is the cause, and upon this assumption to 

 reject the animal as unsound. An eye naturally 



