ON CATARACT. 
271 
Mr. Cartwright is quite correct in the inference he draws from 
my “lectures,” that I had “not seen a case in point.” And I 
cannot just now bring to my recollection how or from whom “ I 
had heard” that cataract occurs without inflammation : though 
it is pretty evident, come from whomsoever the report might, 
that I put at the time little or no credence in it. Experience, 
however—that slow but sure guide to truth—has taught me that 
I was hurrying on too fast in my own road, and that many 
of the steps I°then made must now, to all appearances, be . re¬ 
traced. 
Referring to some notes of cases I made in the year 1S26 fa re¬ 
ference I was led to make from seeing Mr. Cartwright’s commu¬ 
nication in The Veterinarian), I found the followingMr. 
Courtney brought his horse one morning to the infirmary at 
Woolwich, in consequence of its having fallen with him on his 
way to town, and cut its knees and grazed one eyebrow. The 
injuries in the knees were hardly skin-deep, and but of tnfling 
consequence; but on my attention being diawn to the eye, I 
observed the cornea to be partially nebulous, and a cataract to 
be plainly visible through the pupil. Neither of these defects 
was apparent enough to attract any one s notice, hardly, but that 
of a professional person ; and both were quite unconnected with 
the slight bruise the orbital arch had sustained by the fall not 
above an hour or so before. Mr. C. expressed himself much 
surprised at the disclosure of all this disease in his horse’s eye, 
saying that, to his knowledge, the animal had on no occasion 
manifested any signs of weak or bad eyes. I opened the eye* 
vein, and it bled very freely. I gave the animal a dose of physic, 
and also ordered a lead wash, with a little tincture of opium in 
it, for the eye. I told Mr. C. that I might probably succeed in 
removing the corneal opacity j but, as for the cataract, that he 
might regard as beyond the reach of medicine. He leturned 
with his horse on the fifth day, saying that the physic had 
operated briskly, but was now set, and that he himself thought 
the eye looked quite well again. I examined it, and could 
discover neither any relics of the corneal opacity nor of the 
cataract. 
