Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye. 199 



Dr. Wise's preliminary remarks on the apathy of natives 

 as to the loss of vision, appear very just and characteristic : 

 (pp. xviii — xx.) 



"As so large a proportion of the natives of India depend on their 

 daily labour for subsistence, the loss of sight to them is a serious 

 calamity, exposing them, and often their families too, to the danger 

 of starvation. But though surrounded with privations, the magna- 

 nimity with which they meet distress, is remarkable. Even the loss 

 of vision, the greatest of all privations, is often regarded with the 

 utmost indifference. This absence of feeling is the product of their 

 ignorance. They view the calamity as a decree of fate. The gradual 

 deterioration of the faculty of vision, at which stage the means of 

 relief, if sought, promise to be attended with more certain results, is, 

 if possible, regarded with still greater indifference ; and if in any case 

 application is made for assistance, it is deferred till a total loss of 

 sight drives the sufferers to any alternative affording a chance of 

 recovery. Frequently, when interrogated respecting the duration of 

 the blindness, their answers have indicated either a time long anterior 

 to the date of the application, or some equally indefinite period. 

 On more particular enquiry, the time which has often been assigned, 

 is that when the individual was first unable to eat his dinner without 

 assistance, though this event may have occurred long prior to the 

 time of application for relief. A similar obtuseness of feeling is 

 evinced when the sight has been restored, as for instance, when a 

 cataract has been removed. The patient indeed seems pleased to find 

 that he can see after the operation, but his carelessness soon prevails 

 over every other feeling, for on the removal of the bandages, perhaps 

 on the very next day, when directed to look up, he rarely expresses 

 a high degree of pleasure at being enabled to see so well, but rather 

 seems disappointed that he sees so indifferently. Even when cataracts 

 have been successfully removed, the difficulty, if not impossibility of 

 inducing patients to supply themselves with spectacles, has afforded 

 proof enough how little they valued the recovery of sight. While 

 acknowledging that they saw much better with the aid of spectacles, 

 they remained content with the degree of vision they possessed, im- 

 perfect as it was, and preferred dispensing with glasses, unless they 

 were supplied gratuitously ; and for the same reason they would be 



