Recurrent Ophthalmia in Solipeds. Moonblindness. 407 



overflowed and constantly wet, hollow basins where no effective 

 drainage has been secured, and the coasts of seas and lakes which 

 scarcely rise above the level of the water and are submerged at 

 intervals, are the especial homes of the affection. In time past the 

 disease was very prevalent in the low districts of France (Reynal), 

 Belgium, Alsace-I^oraine (Zundel, Miltenberger, ) Germany, Hol- 

 land (MoUer), the English fen country and, above all, the damp 

 lands of Ireland. I,afosse mentions a whole family of horses in 

 South Western France which were characterized by blindness. 

 Reynal records the terrible devastation which it caused in former 

 times in the government studs at I,imousin and Pompadour. It 

 also prevails on the low banks of the Guadalquivir near Seville 

 (Hurtrel d'Arboval), around Ostend, Cassel and Frankfort (Hof- 

 geismar). At Saarburg in 406 horses on the drier limestone, 5 

 per cent, were blind, while in 226 on the wet clay, 40 per cent, 

 were blind (Schwartznecker). In Schlettstadt before drainage 

 there were 75 per cent, blind : after drainage-, 4 per cent. (Ziindel). 

 Wet soils surrounded by forests or hills, which hinder free circu- 

 lation of air, are especially injurious (Reynal). At Schlestadt, 

 Alsace, at the beginning of this century, Miltenberger found 75 

 per cent, of the horses of the environs affected, whereas after 

 great drainage works and the removal of all stagnant water 

 Ziindel found in 1870 not more than 2 per cent. In many locali- 

 ties in England, Ireland, France, Belgium and Germany the dis- 

 ease has greatly diminished in connection with land drainage and 

 improved methods of culture. Harmon tells how in different 

 parts of Brittany, drainage supplemented by the free use of marl 

 and lime on the soil has caused a striking decrease in the prev- 

 alence of the malady. In the department of Ain a ratio of 333 

 per 1000 was thus reduced to 100 per looo (Reynal.) On the 

 contrary, in the absence of such drying of the soil the previous 

 high ratio of attacks was maintained. This has been notorious 

 in the damp lands of Northern France and Belgium (Picardy, 

 Artois, Flanders, where it often reaches 40 to 70 per cent. Reynal) : 

 Alsace-I/oraine, Holland, Hanover, Mecklenberg, North and 

 East Prussia, I^ithuania, the low parts of Austria and Hungary 

 and the Danubian Principalities — Moldavia and Walachia. 



Reynal further shows that dealers are in the habit, of taking 

 young horses, which have so far escaped, or which have suffered 

 but one moderate attack, away from the low damp soils of the low 



