SECTION II. 



DISEASES OF THE EYE. 



/ maurosis, or Glass Ete (Gutta Serena) — Foreign Bodies within the Eye- 

 lids — Specks, or Film on the Eye, known as Opacity of the Cornea — 

 Cataract — Worm in the Eye — Ophthalmia — Treatment of Inflammation — 

 Purulent Ophthalmia — Specific Ophthalmia. 



Amaurosis (" Glass Eye " — Gutta Serena.) 



AMAUROSIS is known to most men as " glass eye." Physi • 

 cians, however, have named the disease gutta serena. The 

 abnormal condition, which consists in dilatation of the pupil, un- r 

 influenced by light or darkness, is occasioned by paralysis of the 

 optic nerve and its ultimate expansion. 



Causes. — Some horses, of an excitable, nervous temperament, 

 often become the subjects of dilated pupil, without any assignable 

 cause ; while that form of amaurosis occurring among plethoric 

 subjects, or those whose digestive organs a\-e deranged or occupied 

 by a large quantity of undigested food, (they, the subjects border- 

 ing on that state known as stomach staggers,) can easily be ex- 

 plained on the w T ell-known law of sympathy. 



We may, however, with propriety, assign a cause for its occur- 

 rence in the eyes of nervous, excitable horses ; for this very con- 

 dition of the nervous system, which gives rise to the excitability, 

 perhaps goes to show that the brain is actually diseased, either iD 

 function or structure. Animals subject to this affection are gen- 

 erally of a "bony," spare, muscular development, and have wiry 

 sinews, thin tapering ears, delicate lips and nostrils, diminution 

 in the quantity of the hair in the mane and tail, but remarkable 

 for compactness of texture. We generally find, under ordinary 

 circumstances, the black color preponderates in nervous horses 

 over the various shades of equine coloring- matter found in the 

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