CATARACT. I9gt 
eyelids open as much as possible, firm, steady pressure should be made on the 
eyeball for about five minutes, unless it is sooner restored. This should be tried 
with clean fingers only. ; 
If success does not attend these efforts within the time stated, until the phy- 
sician arrives let the eye be covered with a soft handkerchief wrung out of warm 
water; and meanwhile the poor dog be kept as quiet as possible. 
The doctor should try pressure at first, but that failing, he should snip with 
scissors the outer corner of the eye and enlarge the palpebral opening. 
This in turn being unsuccessful, he should remove the eyeball. 
The operation is not a difficult one, still it ought never to be attempted except 
by a skilful physician or veterinarian. Unfortunately the number of the latter 
who have been educated up to operations like this is comparatively small, and 
they are seldom to be found except in large cities. All educated practitioners 
of medicine are equal to the removal of an eyeball, and yet if a physician who 
makes a specialty of diseases of the eye is within reach it would be far better to 
entrust the operation to him. 
CATARACT. 
There seems to prevail among the most experiencéd dogmen a belief that 
cataract occurs but rarely, if ever, excepting in old dogs, and that there is but 
one form of the affection. As a matter of fact this grave trouble sometimes 
exists in puppies at birth. It may also be caused by injury, as a blow, while in 
some instances it occurs in consequence of inflammation. But of the various 
classes doubtless the cataract of advanced life is the most common. 
The abnormal change which occurs can scarcely be understood without some 
anatomical knowledge of the eye, so it will be well to glance at its construction. 
The eyeball has often been compared to a photographer’s camera, and the 
comparison is apt and convenient. It is essentially a hollow box, and contains, 
with its refracting fluids, a lens by which images can be formed, and a screen 
upon which they can be received. While in front of the lens there is a diaphram 
with a variable aperture to regulate the amount of light admitted. Beyond this 
the interior surfaces are darkened with black pigment, as is the case with the 
camera; and the eye has much the same power of adjustment. 
The lens is an elastic, bi-convex body, which not only looks like an ordinary 
glass magnifying-lens, but is equally as transparent — that is, in its normal state, 
but in cataract it becomes opaque, and in corresponding degree, of course, loses 
its transparency. This opacity or cloudiness prevents the image upon the back- 
ground from becoming sharp and clear, as is essential for distinct vision. 
Cataract in young puppies is generally attributable to defective nutrition 
