RESEARCHES INTO THE CAUSES OF BLINDNESS. 407 
eye becoming less sensible ; but the cure is far off, the amendment 
is only apparent, and the slightest thing will cause the disease to 
return ; and thus it invariably produces blindness. 
In the month of September, 1840, a four-year-old horse w as 
brought to us, having a phlegmonous swelling. We considered 
it to be some remains of strangles. The existence of suppuration 
was possible ; but we preferred delaying the puncturing of the swell- 
ing ; and, first of all, having recourse to an embrocation composed 
of equal parts of blister fluid and basilicon. We observed that the 
right eye was dull, weeping, and veiled by the upper lid, and, on 
pointing it out, the owner of the animal said that it was the result 
of a LUNATIC abscess. The tumour terminated in an abscess in about, 
three days, and the day afterwards it broke, and we were surprised 
to find a great amelioration of all the symptoms of ophthalmia, 
which, indeed, shortly afterwards disappeared, to return no more. 
We communicated with M. Carret, the veterinary surgeon to 
the district, who perfectly agreed with us, that in the course of nearly 
twenty years’ practice he had observed many such cases. 
We are perfectly aware that there will be many opponents to 
our opinion. Any expression of the old humoral doctrine will 
sound unpleasantly in the ears of the partisans of physiological 
medicine : they generally prefer adopting the theory of morbid 
sympathy to seeking in the interior of the animal economy for the 
effects arising from the presence of these morbid products. They 
would, doubtless, find it easier to explain their views by quoting the 
principle laid down by Hippocrates respecting revulsions, or by 
that kind of natural revulsion which takes place in these circum- 
stances. If it were our wish to enter the lists, or, rather, if it were 
not from the fear that these considerations on medical philosophy 
might be deemed out of place in a practical work, we would in- 
quire how it happens that, when matter collects in certain parts of 
the organization, ophthalmia pursues its course, without regard to 
setons, purgatives, or antiphlogistics ? And, lastly, why should 
there be this diseased constitution, - this disposition to adynamic 
affections in horses in which strangles have appeared ? 
Again, changing our ground, we would inquire whether strangles 
is simply an inflammation of the mucous membrane of the respiratory 
passages ; and, supposing this hypothesis, whence comes the strik- 
ing difference between it and one observed in the same parts at a 
more advanced period of life 1 Whence the abundant discharge in 
the one case, and the numerous abscesses, and why is it that these 
morbid phenomena are not found in the other ] 
Passing on to comparative pathology, we might refer, in support 
of our opinion, to the history of that obstinate, if not incurable, pu- 
rulent ophthalmia which so often attends the distemper in dogs ; 
