He then went to a private oculist, under whose care he remained for six weeks. He again was salivated; but still the sight became more obscured, and the pains in his forehead and temple more acute.
I saw him first in October; he was then suffering from severe pain in the forehead and temple. The left eye was so blind that he could not distinguish, even when placed close beside it, a large bookcase. He said he could scarcely guide himself in the street. The pupil was almost immoveable. There was a white cataract in the right eye, and a total want of vision.
He has had the vapour of the prussic acid applied to both eyes almost daily since October. He can now, with the left eye, read ordinary-size print, and is free from all pain. Nearly the upper half of the cataract of the right eye is absorbed, and he is beginning to see with it. This case shows the power of the acid in not only producing absorption, but in the removal of amaurosis at the same time. Unless the capsule of the lens had been lacerated by the awl, I do not think that the acid could have had any power in causing absorption in a case of cataract which had existed for the long period of twenty-eight years. He is still under treatment.
CASE 11.
Cataract.
Mr. Monro, aged 28, at No. 16, Featherstone Buildings, twelve years ago, had violent inflammation, occasioned by the lash of a whip striking the left eye, from which time he has been unable to see more than the shadow of an object. He says that many have advised him to submit to an operation for cataract, but others have recommended him not to do so as long as one eye remained sound.
On the 16th of May, when he applied to me, I tried, as an experiment, the vapour of the prussic acid, which was employed for about three months. At the end of that time he could see different objects, and discern countenances, when the other eye was closed.