186 TRANSLATIONS FROM CONTINENTAL JOURNALS, 
animal, and therefore to affect the eves in an indirect 
' V 
manner. 
The true cause, he says, is in the debility of the constitu¬ 
tion, the lymphatic temperament of the animal inducing 
general debility in the individual, and especially those of a 
gross and lymphatic constitution. Such are most subject to 
this affection. The fact is, though it has not been recog¬ 
nised by some authors, that horses bred in the marshy dis¬ 
tricts near Huningue, and Belfort, Charente, Basse-Auvergne, 
Limagne, Bas-Languedoc and Bas-Cotentin, are more subject 
to specific ophthalmia than those bred in the arid and dry 
mountainous regions, where it is of rare occurrence. Here¬ 
ditary predisposition has also been considered as one of the 
causes of this disease, but in medicine and physiology the 
agreement of several cases are often necessary to establish the 
fact, and here we must not limit the development of this 
affection to the influence of one cause. Hereditarv dis- 
position may determine the affection in a lymphatic subject, 
but it would not suffice in a subject which by being placed 
under different circumstances has acquired a strong consti¬ 
tution, so as to be able to resist or lessen the effect of this 
influence, that is to say, there may exist an hereditary pre¬ 
disposition, but which might be nullified by change of 
locality and improved diet. If that in many cases the result 
of a number of observations has not led to the conclusion 
that it is hereditary, it is nevertheless certain that by trans¬ 
mitting from generation to generation a constitution or a 
predisposition favorable to certain maladies, we may by means 
of aliment and locality ameliorate if not prevent hereditary 
predisposition. The gastro-enteritis or influenza which 
prevailed in 1825 in Paris, and which has at certain periods 
reappeared, with some modifications, in different parts of 
France, has often been followed by specific ophthalmia; and 
simultaneously with the first symptoms of this malady, or 
shortly after, when there has suddenly appeared an affection 
of the globe of the eye, bearing a striking resemblance to 
specific ophthalmia, if it be not the same affection, either 
symptomatic or consecutive and accessory, having the same 
results, and by its access and intermittent nature, more or 
less frequent, it deteriorates the eyes, and produces blindness 
of one or both. 
All maladies of the type of that prevalent in 1825 may 
therefore be considered as one of the causes of specific oph¬ 
thalmia ; but only in so far as by regimen and treatment 
fresh accessions have not been guarded against. It would 
be too absurd to mention here the influence of the moon, to 
