'Treatment.'--When in England, we sent to the United States a fine bred
pointer dog, designed as a present for one of our sporting friends. This
animal travelled from Leeds to Liverpool, chained on top of the railroad
cars; the journey occupied several hours, daring which the weather was
cold and boisterous, and we noticed on his arrival at the latter place
that his eyes were watering and somewhat inflamed. On examining them
more particularly, we were enabled to extract several pieces of cinder
from under the lids, which seemed to relieve him somewhat. He went to
sea, in the care of the steward, on the following day; and remained on
deck exposed to the inclemency of the weather during a long voyage. When
he arrived in Philadelphia, the inflammation, we were informed, was very
considerable, occasioned by the presence of some other small particles
of cinder that may have escaped our attention before shipping him. The
presence of these foreign substances in the eye, in connection with the
salt spray and irritating atmosphere, greatly aggravated the ophthalmia,
and resolved it into a chronic affection, which ultimately resulted in
entropium.
"Fop" was hunted during the same autumn, which no doubt increased the
malady to a considerable extent; and before the hunting season was over,
the dog was rendered almost useless: the lids becoming so much swollen
and the irritation so considerable, that it was deemed cruel to allow
him to go into the field.
When we saw him some time in the course of the same winter, the lower
lids of both eyes were completely inverted on their globes, and the
conjunctival inflammation and flow of tears considerable.
The eyes seemed contracted within their sockets, and at times were
nearly hidden from view, the corneas were somewhat opaque, the
photophobia intolerable, and the animal showed evident signs of extreme
pain, by his restless anxiety and constant efforts at scratching and
rubbing the eyes.
Under the judicious application of cooling astringent collyria, and
other remediate means, the irritation and pain of the parts were
relieved, and the lids somewhat retracted.
"Fop" remained in this condition till the following autumn, suffering at
times considerably from the increased inflammation and tumefaction of
the lids, which continued obstinately to persist, insomuch that when
turned out by the pressure of the fingers on them, they immediately
contracted, and were forced inwards on the ball when freed from the
fingers.
Finding that no external application was of any permanent benefit, we
resolved to have resort to the same operation we saw practised in the
Parisian hospitals for the cure of a similar malformation in the human
subject.
To insure quiet we enclosed the body of the dog in a case, made
stationary and sufficiently small to prevent struggling, with the head
firmly fixed by a sliding door, as represented in the accompanying
drawing.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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