OPHTHALMIA IN CATTLE. 
555 
The appetite of all the animals was good, and there was 
nothing to lead one to believe that the disease had a consti- 
tutional origin, but that the cases were simply inflammation 
of the eyes from some local cause. After a day or two, the 
acute inflammation subsided, and an opacity of the cornea 
was to be observed, with, in most cases, a distended or drop- 
sical condition of the globe of the eye in the centre. In the 
worst cases an appearance of the anterior chamber being dis- 
tended with pus was present. Many of the animals are now 
getting better, but they will be some time before they quite 
recover their sight. Several had both eyes affected, but 
others only one. 
The foreman told me yesterday (September 10th), that 
some bullocks that had been grazing with the cows had got 
the same complaint, but were not so bad as either the cows or 
calves had been. I understand that the same, or a similar 
disease, has shown itself this year in many places in Cam- 
bridgeshire. 
[During the last five or six years, in particular, our atten- 
tion has frequently been directed to this variety of ophthalmia 
in cattle. There is a good deal of mystery attending its in- 
vasion, and the records which we have preserved throw but 
little light on the causes, predisposing or exciting, on which 
it may depend. Upon the whole, calves and young stock are 
more often attacked than older animals, and this whether they 
are in sheds or at grass. The disease, as a rule, makes its ap- 
pearance during the summer and autumnal months, although 
the attacks are not entirely confined to these periods. The 
subjects of it are also not exclusively such animals as are in 
full condition of body, or even those in the opposite state ; 
both perhaps are equally liable. Breed seems to exercise no 
influence over it, nor does locality, in so far as the Midland 
and Southern parts of England are concerned. With the 
North, however, we are not sufficiently practically acquainted 
as to speak with decision on this point. The disease in the 
greater number of instances is confined entirely to one eye, 
the other remaining perfectly healthy. Its invasion is marked 
by a slight turgescence of the vessels of the conjunctiva, a 
little weeping of the eyes, and an intolerance of light. By the 
second day, an opaque spot, about the size of a split pea, and 
white in colour, appears in the centre of the transparent 
cornea. A close examination shows that lymph is now effused 
between the layers of which the cornea is composed. Very 
soon some of these layers give way, and generally those which 
are deep seated are the first to do so. This leads to a bulging 
