The causes of loss of sight shortly stated and explained.

Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causes of loss of sight shortly stated and explained. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    VII. Anatomy reveals to us, that there is situated within the eye, and almost im¬ mediately behind the pupil, a double-con¬ vex lens, similar in form to the glass of a pair of spectacles, only very thick in pro¬ portion to its small breadth, and in the healthy state perfectly transparent. Dis¬ ease sometimes destroys the transparency of this part of the eye, and the consequence is, that the light entering the eye is stopped, confused, and scattered by the opake lens, which it encounters in its passage towards the nerve of vision. This opacity of the lens constitutes what is termed cataract, a disease to which old age is particularly subject, although cases are occasionally met with of children being affected with it even from birth. Cataract is a disease curable only by surgical operations, calculated to remove the opake lens, either slowly or at once, from the eye. VIII. A failure in the sensibility of the nerve of vision to light, is a common cause of blindness. This was the blindness of Milton. It is styled gutta serena, or a- maurosis; and to the former of these appel¬ lations, the illustrious poet refers in his celebrated address to light. But thou Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hatli quench’d their orbs.” The causes of amaurosis are very numer-