treading the higher rungs of the official or business ladder, and is endeavouring to afford his children the best education in his power. Few pictures are more pitiful than that of such a man passing hopefully down an avenue of credulity and ignorance to a fate to which death itself is often preferred, the horror of a great and lifelong darkness. On the other hand, Government, the protector of the poor, stands by powerless to interfere, and supinely watches this catastrophic waste of human energy. The cords that bind the individuals are woven a million-fold together to tie the hands of the rulers more securely still. Every civilized nation of to-day recognises it as a first principle, that it is its duty to protect its people from avoidable harm, and that to deal with preventable blindness is one of its primary duties. That men and women, who ought to be burden-bearers, should be thrown instead as a burden on their relatives or on the State, is a social evil of no small magnitude. One does not presume to blame either the State or the people. It would obviously be idle and wrong to do so. The plain indication is to arouse the medical conscience of the country, to start men thinking of the evils which are so rife in the land; and so to introduce a ferment, as it were, into the medical mind of India, and then to leave it to do its work. It is not suggested that the country is ripe for legislation on the subject. The people are not ready for it. There are, however, two distinct avenues along which an advance may safely be made--viz., (1) the systematic dissemination of knowledge through Government agencies amongst the people; (2) the improvement of ophthalmic medical education. A movement in these two directions is already on foot, and in time it will bear much fruit. CHAPTER V THE PATHOLOGICAL ANATOMY OF COUCHED EYES Being the Hunterian Lectures delivered before the Royal College of Surgeons of England on February 19 and 21, 1917 _The material at our disposal consists of 54 globes_, the great majority of which were removed in the Madras Ophthalmic Hospital in the period from 1911 to 1915, though some are of much older date. They were placed in 5 per cent. formalin immediately on removal, and were subsequently frozen and bisected. In a number of instances one half of the eye was submitted to microscopic examination after suitable sectioning. Each of the half-globes and a number of microscopic specimens have been photographed for purposes of illustration. It will be convenient to classify our observations under a number of separate headings. =The Various Directions in which Dislocation of the Lens is found to have taken place.= Before considering this subject in the light of the pathological specimens before us, it is necessary to make certain preliminary statements: