CATARACT
,—the technical term for a defect of the eye, to which no particular cause of origin has been yet decisively ascertained. The faculty define it, "an opacity of the crystalline humour of the eye, which prevents the rays of light passing to the retina, and of course preventing vision." Doctor Hunter says, "it is when an inflammation in the coat of the crystalline humour hath rendered it opaque." But Mr. St. Yves seems to be of opinion that the crystalline humour swells. He also divides the cataract into the true, the doubtful, and false: the true he subdivides again into three; the doubtful into four; and the false into the glaucoma, and the shaking cataract. All this division and sub-division seems little regarded even by the most curious and indefatigable in anatomical researches; particularly as it is much to be regretted, that, with every professional and energetic endeavour, no medicines, external or internal, have ever been discovered, that are known certainly capable of removing this disorder. In the human frame, methods of operating on the crystalline humour were successfully practised by Sharp, Daviel, and others: little, however, is to be expected with the horse. In such case, perhaps, it may be "better to bear those ills we have, than venture upon those we know not of."