DISEASES OF HORSES IN INDIA. 
115 
% 
was ascertained. The horse was cast, and his head secured 
on the ground ; the lids were held open, and a lancet passed, 
into the cornea a little below its centre. The aqueous humour 
spurted out, and brought with it the worm, which moved about 
briskly; but it died in about five minutes. After the operation, 
the horse was bled and purged, and a cloth wet with goulard 
water was kept over the eye. In fourteen days the "upper half 
of the cornea w^as clear ; at the expiration of a month, there re¬ 
mained a triangular opacity at the lower part of the cornea, 
equal to one-third its area ; the apex of the opacity being oppo¬ 
site to the centre of the pupil; and there was a small speck just 
within the apex of the opacity, which marked where the lancet 
had entered, and around it a slight roughness of the cornea. 
Seven months after the operation, the opacity was equal to 
about one-sixth the.area of the cornea; the horse was, (to use 
a common phrase,) much out of condition, had puffy swellings 
of the joints, a large elevated ulcer near one of the hoofs, and 
there also appeared weakness in the loins. I should have pre¬ 
mised, that five or six weeks before any affection of the eye was 
observed, this horse had puffy swellings about the knee and 
hock joints, and assumed a dull spiritless aspect, but was not 
emaciated. 
After extraction, the worm resembled a piece of fine white 
sewing thread, seven-eighths of an inch long. Viewed with a 
microscope, this worm had the appearance of a large semitrans¬ 
parent piece of catgut ; there were five luminous spots, dispos¬ 
ed circularly, near one end, which I imagine to be the head of 
the animal; below these spots there was an irregular luminous 
patch, in size nearly the diameter of the worm; and from this, 
two parallel lines of a similar appearance extended the whole 
length of its body. On the day this worm was extracted and 
examined the wind was remarkably dry, and consequently in 
a few minutes the worm became like a shred of isinglass, and I 
could not discover any aperture in its semitransparent sub¬ 
stance. The end which I conceive to have been the head, and 
where the group of luminous spots was situated, was round, and 
very little larger than the other extremity, which was flat. 
I have seen similar worms taken from the eyes of horses in 
Ceylon; they appeared to me to be of a darker colour, and some¬ 
what larger than that which I now present for the inspection of 
the Society. 
I may remark, that I have never seen a case w^here the cor¬ 
nea did not remain with some degree of opacity after the ope¬ 
ration for the extraction of the worm ; but I have heard it 
asserted, that the eye is often free from blemish, after it is per- , 
