OPHTHALMIA. 93 



lids, and drawing a keen lancet slightly over them, is the most 

 effectual of all ways to abate inflammation, for we are then im- 

 mediately unloadiag 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 (digitalis, nitre 

 and emetic tartar). The disease, however, ebbs and flows, re 

 treats and attacks, untU it reaches its natural termination, blind 

 ness of one or both eyes. 



The horse is more subject to this disease from the age of foui 

 to six years. Every affection of the eye appearing about this 

 age, should be regarded with suspicion. The eye should be 

 most carefully observed at the time of purchase, and the ex- 

 aminer should be fully aware of the minute indications of dis- 

 ease. They are a slight thickening of the lids, or puckering tow- 

 ards the inner corner of the eye ; a difference in the apparent 

 size of the eyes ; a cloudiness, although perhaps scarcely per- 

 ceptible, of the surface of the cornea, or more deeply seated, 

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

 and dulness of the iris ; or a minute, faint, duslcy spot in the 

 centre, with or without minute fibres or lines diverging from it. 



There is undoubtedly a strong predisposition to this inflamcma 

 tion in the eye of the horse, but it is assisted by the heated and 

 empoisoned air of many stables. The dung and urine of the 

 horse, and the litter when becoming putrid, emit fumes of vola- 

 tile alkali, or hartshorn. We need not wonder at the prevalence 

 of inflammation in the eye of the stable horse, nor at the difii- 

 culty in abating it, while this organ contiimes much exposed to 

 the effect of this pungent gas. 



Dark stables, are another cause of ophthalmia. Let the horse 

 be led several times a day from a dark room into a iiill glare 

 of light, and the sight will become disordered, the eyes weak, 

 and disposed to take on sudden inflammation, with all its fatal 

 results. 



The disease is also in a high degree hereditary. A staUion with 

 defective sight should never be employed. 



The most frequent consequences of this disease are cloudiness 

 of the eye, and cataract. The cloudiness is singular in its nature. 

 It will change in twenty-four hours irom the thinnest film to the 

 thickest opacity, and, as suddenly, the eye will nearly regain its 

 perfect transparency, but only to lose it, and as rapidly, a second 

 time. 



Chalk, salt, sugar, and even pounded glass have been intro- 

 duced into the eye to remove the film, but we need not say that 

 the effect of such remedies would be to recall the inflammation, 

 and that they are utterly barbarous. Where the cloudiness can 

 be remo-ved, it will be best effected by first abating inflamma 



