112 REVIEW — MR. PERCIVALL’S HIPPOPATHOLOGY. 
which the diameter of the canal has been lessened, and the spi- 
nal marrow, consequently, pressed on by ossific deposit. 
On quitting a subject of the anatomy and physiology of 
which, as well as of the pathology, we know so little as we do of 
the brain and nerves, it is with positive pleasure that we turn our 
attention to an organ, the anatomy and physiology of which we 
are so perfectly au fait with as the eye, the dissection and in- 
vestigation of which is an actual amusement, after the examina- 
tion of the more dry and less defined structures ; but, at the 
same time, it is a most annoying and humiliating acknowledg- 
ment that the veterinary surgeon is obliged to make, that the 
same impotent result in the treatment of its principal disease still 
holds good. Nothing can be more full, clear, and masterly, than 
the account given in the work before us of Ophthalmia, and 
we therefore do not hesitate to join issue on a few, and but few, 
points on which we differ. We have no more doubt of the here- 
ditary nature of ophthalmia than we have of any fact that cannot 
be mathematically demonstrated. The first proofs of this came 
before us very early in life, and have been followed by others 
without number. The proofs to which we allude were noticed 
very many years since on a visit to the breeding establishment 
of the Hon. Newton Fellows, at that time a very extensive one. 
He had a magnificent black thorough-bred stallion blind in both 
eyes, which was so great a favourite, that, at the period alluded 
to, he bred entirely from him. In a capacious and well arranged 
straw-yard were from thirty to forty colts and fillies, principally 
yearlings and two-year-olds, all his stock, and shewing almost 
every diversity of form and figure ; — in two points only did they 
all agree : they were all black, and every one of them had de- 
fective eyes. Three or four were blind ; the great majority had 
diseased eyes ; and out of the entire stock not a pair of clear, 
sound, good-looking eyes could be selected. With respect to 
the fact alluded to, that stallions with good eyes get stock pre- 
disposed to ophthalmia, it must be borne in mind, that the same 
law applies to this as to all other hereditary diseases, namely, 
that a portion of, nay even an entire, generation may escape 
scathless, but that in the second or third it will return with all 
its virulence. In discussing this question, therefore, it is neces- 
