44 
VETERINARY JURISPRUDENCE. 
groom, and from the colt-breaker who broke him in, who all as¬ 
sert that they never saw the horse with inflamed eyes, we must 
suppose that he never had any apparent attacks of inflammation, 
so as to produce the cataract; and I am also induced to come to 
the conclusion from having seen since that time two other simi¬ 
lar cases which I will now relate. 
The first was a chestnut horse, five years of age, the property 
of Mr. Hort, in this town, which had two cataracts in each eye ; 
two of them were about the size of a large pin’s head, and the 
other two were each treble that size. His eyes were perfectly 
transparent, with the above exceptions, and did not shew the least 
vestige of former inflammation, and which the person that bred 
him said he had never been subject to. Mr. Hort sold him 
about the month of December 1831, to a Mr. Dawson, of Bur¬ 
ley dam, with these cataracts evident enough ; but from that time 
they gradually disappeared, and in the autumn of 1832 there was 
not the least to be seen of them, and I saw him a few days ago, 
when his eyes were perfectly sound. 
The other case is a five-years old black cob-mare, the property 
of Mr. Wray, of Ightfield Heath (four miles from this place), and 
who purchased her from a Mr. Powell, of Darliston, sometime 
in 1832. In the month of November in the same year I saw 
her, and detected a cataract in the right eye, and of the size of a 
coriander seed. I then advised him to get rid of her, thinking 
that she would go blind ; but being a very useful thing, he kept 
her. In the month of August 1833, I saw her again, when the 
cataract had disappeared, and her eyes were perfect. I have 
spoken to Mr. Powell respecting her, who informed me that he 
had never seen any thing the matter with her eyes; and Mr. 
Wray says he never did, with the exception of the cataract. . 
I believe it is the opinion of veterinary surgeons and authors 
generally, that cataracts never form without previous inflamma¬ 
tion; and English authors, I think, are totally silent respecting 
the disappearing of them when formed. 
Mr. Blaine says, u that cataract never appears, as in the human 
subject, as a distinct disease, independent of active inflammation 
of ophthalmia.” 
Mr. Percivall says, “ that it will be found to be invariably in 
horses one of the consequences of ophthalmia; for, in cases where 
no signs of increased action have attended its apparent formation, 
they may be generally discovered to have existed at no very re¬ 
mote period preceding itbut adds, u I do not mean to assert 
that it never happens without inflammation: I have heard, and 
so far I believe, that it does; but it certainly is comparatively a 
very rare occurrence thus shewing that he has not seen a case 
in point. 
