268 DISEASES OF THE HORSE. 



advantage on the side of the nose or beneath the ear. Spanish flies 

 may be used as for external ophthalmia. In very severe cases the 

 parts beneath the eye may be shaved and three or four leeches applied. 

 Setons are sometimes beneficial, and even puncture of the eyeball, but 

 these should be reserved for professional hands. 



The diet throughout should be easily digestible and moderate in 

 quantity bran mash, middlings, grass, steamed hay, etc. 



Even after the active inflammation has subsided the atropia lotion 

 should be continued for some weeks to keep the eye in a state of rest 

 in its still weak and irritable condition, and during this period the 

 patient should be kept in semidarkness, or taken out only with a dark 

 shade over the eye. For the same reason heavy drafts and rapid 

 paces, which would cause congestion of the head, should be carefully 

 avoided. 



RECURRENT OPHTHALMIA (PERIODIC OPHTHALMIA, OR MOONBLINDNESS) . 



This is an inflammatory affection of the interior of the eye, inti- 

 mately related to certain soils, climates, and systems, showing a strong 

 tendency to recur again and again, and usually ending in blindness 

 from cataract or other serious injury. 



Causes. Its causes may be fundamentally attributed to soil. On 

 damp clays and marshy grounds, on the frequently overflowed river 

 bottoms and deltas, on the coasts of seas and lakes alternately sub- 

 merged and exposed, this disease prevails extensively, and in many 

 instances in France (Reynal), Belgium, Alsace (Zundel, Milten- 

 berger), Germany, and England it has very largely decreased under 

 land drainage and improved methods of culture. Other influences, 

 more or less associated with such soil, are potent causative factors. 

 Thus damp air and a cloudy, wet climate, so constantly associated with 

 wet lands, are universally charged with causing the disease. These 

 act on the animal body to produce a lymphatic constitution with an 

 excess of connective tissue, bones, and muscles of coarse open texture, 

 thick skins and gummy legs covered with a profusion of long hair. 

 Hence the heavy horses of Belgium and southwestern France have suf- 

 fered severely from the affection, while high dry lands adjacent, like 

 Catalonia, in Spain, and Dauphiny, Provence, and Languedoc, in 

 France, have in the main escaped. 



The rank aqueous fodders grown on such soils are other causes, but 

 these again are calculated to undermine the character of the nervous 

 and sanguineous temperament, and to superinduce the lymphatic. 

 Other foods act by leading to constipation and other disorders of the 

 digestive organs, thus impairing the general health ; hence in any ani- 

 mal predisposed to this disease, heating, starchy foods, such as maize, 

 wheat, and buckwheat, are to be carefully avoided. It has been widely 

 charged that beans, pease, vetches, and other Leguminosse are danger- 



