OPHTHALMIA. 
257 
the mind of a geographer who is about to enter upon the 
description of a country into the heart of which no traveller 
has ever yet been able to penetrate, that I do it. May we be 
able to set about the description of a disease whose nature and 
cure even yet remain to be developed. 
It would be asserting too much to say that we do not un¬ 
derstand more about it than the former practitioners of “ horse 
medicine ” did. Science has shed its light upon and much im¬ 
proved our knowledge of diseases of the eye, as well as those of 
other organs, but all art and practice have failed to furnish us 
with anything in the shape of a remedy by which we are able 
to arrest this one in its destructive course, or prevent its almost 
sure return and fatal termination, and therefore in point of 
naked fact, what we have professed to learn concerning periodic 
ophthalmia has turned out of very little practical use to us. 
Still it is our duty to record what we do know and to lay down 
such rules for the guidance of future investigators as our ex¬ 
perience has put us in possession of. And with such views as 
these, rather than with great prospects of proving of much bene¬ 
fit to our suffering patients, must we enter upon the subject of 
this paper. 
This is, indeed, as has been said of some other diseases, 
u The bane of horse flesh.” What can be more annoying to 
the feelings of the owner of a good horse than to be told that 
what he took to be simply a cold in the eye, or a weak eye, is 
likely, nay'almost sure, to prove in the end a case of blindness, 
and as it is not within the skill of his medical adviser to pre¬ 
vent this fatal termination, he had better avail himself of the 
first opportunity to dispose of him. Such advice as this is 
enough to make him exclaim : “ 1 hrow physic to the dogs ; I 
want none of it.” 
Name .—Among the various appellations that have been ap¬ 
plied to it, we are still using the one given it by the French 
veterinarian who preferred it on account of its relapses, as 
though it were a fresh disease, after having been absent for a 
more or less considerable time. Prof. Coleman called it specific 
