The old, rude, artificial eyes are simply oval shells, all made from one pattern, and differing only in size and in color. No pretension to artistic or scientific skill has been claimed by the artificial-eye manufacturer--he has made a certain number of deep blues, light blues, hazels, and others, according to the state of the eye-market. These rude shells were constructed mainly with the view of giving the wearer an almond-shaped eye, and with little regard to its matching the eye in sound and active service. Artificial eyes were not made to order: but the patient was left to pick out the eye he would prefer to wear, as he would pick out a glove. The manufacture was kept a profound mystery, and few medical men had access to its secrets. The manufacturers sold eyes by the gross, to retail-dealers, at a low price; and these supplied patients. Under this system, artificial eyes were only applicable in the very rare cases of atrophy of the globe; and the effect produced was even more repulsive than that of the diseased eye. The disease was hidden by an unnatural and repulsive expression, which it is difficult to describe. While one eye was gazing intently in your face, the other was fixed in another direction--immovable, the more hideous because at first you mistook it for a natural eye. A smile may over spread the face, animate the lip, and lighten up the natural eye; but there was the glass eye--fixed, lustreless, and dead. It had other disadvantages: it interfered with the lachrymal functions, and sometimes caused a tear to drop in the happiest moments.