ON ABSORPTION OF CATARACTS. 447 
and became intermittent; and at six p.m. she died, without a 
struggle. 
I was obliged to be elsewhere, and my assistant examined her. 
There was a considerable quantity of bloody fluid in the cavity 
of the abdomen. The liver was very pale and gritty, but all the 
other abdominal viscera were free from disease. There was a 
quantity of green water in the chest, and the left lung was in a 
very high state of congestion. The right lung was much en- 
larged, and covered with green patches. The heart was double 
its natural size, yet otherwise apparently sound. The pia mater 
covering the cerebrum was highly injected. 
ON THE ABSORPTION OF CATARACTS. 
Bit Mr. Cartwright, Whitchurch. 
It affords me great pleasure to see that two medical gentlemen 
have favoured us with very interesting observations in your last 
number; and I hope the time is not far distant when there will 
be many others who will kindly lend us their assistance, and en- 
tertain the liberal views which are expressed at the conclusion of 
Mr. Cooper’s remarks. 
I am inclined to think that Mr. C. does not exactly understand 
the state of the case which I wished to illustrate by my quotation 
from Mr. Hey. 
It is not “ whether or not the opaque capsule of the crystalline 
lens is capable of being absorbed after the removal of the lens 
itself,” as stated by him, for we never extract the lens — nor whe- 
ther excised opaque portions, floating in the aqueous humour, are 
absorbed ; but whether small cataracts, from the size of a corian- 
der seed downwards, and which are supposed by veterinary sur- 
geons to be capsular, are ever absorbed, and the capsule becomes 
transparent again. 
Mr. Tyrrell says "‘they never do;” and you and Professor 
Owen agree with him. Now, in opposition to such an opinion 
we have the facts recorded by Messrs. Pott, Lucas, and Hey, 
some of whom had seen cases in which the patients had been 
blind for three months, twelve months, and even for so long a 
time as four years, before the opacity began to disappear. Mr. 
Abernethy says, “a capsular cataract I have nothing to say about; 
that seems to be a disease that may get well.” 
In our own profession we have Messrs. Clay, Harris, Percivall, 
and Spooner, of Southampton, and myself, who have seen simi- 
lar cases. 
