The operation of couching for cataract is one of the most ancient procedures known to surgery, the earliest description of the method being that given by Celsus, a contemporary of Christ’s. The first historical mention of ophthalmic surgeons was in Alexandria, at the time when medicine and surgery underwent separation from each other in that great and flourishing city, nearly three centuries before the dawn of the Christian era, and Galen states that some of these surgeons devoted themselves exclusively to operating on cataracts. Celsus speaks of the writings of a famous Alexandrian surgeon, named Philoxenes, who lived 270 years before Christ, and from whom he apparently derived much of his lore. These writings have unfortunately been lost, thus yielding to Celsus the proud position of being the first author whose description of the operation has come down to modern times. Sprengel is of the opinion that couching was not only known long before the time of Celsus, but also that the technique of the operation, even at that distant era, varied widely in the hands of its different exponents. Of the correctness of this view there can be little doubt. Sir John Bland-Sutton has recently published a most interesting memoir on the recovery of the sight of Tobit at the hands of his son Tobias, as described in the Apocrypha, and has included in it a copy of Rembrandt’s picture of the famous operation. Whether the displacement of the lens was due to the rubbing employed or to more definite operative measures must be left to speculation, but, in considering this point, it is worth remembering that the Eastern coucher of to-day hides the fact that he is performing an operation under the cloak of the application of a medicinal paste. Nor must we forget that the anointing of the eyes of the blind with clay played a leading part in one at least of the New Testament miracles, and is suggested in a second. It is to be remembered that the Founder of Christianity took His examples from, and moulded His teachings by the aid of things familiar to the people in their everyday life. The influence of the Oriental on the introduction of couching to the Western surgeon is shown by the repeated references in the history of the subject to Eastern exponents of the procedure. Thus, Razes speaks of the work of an Indian named Tabri, and Avicenna, himself an Arabian, describes at length the instruments and technique of the Arab cataract operators. Abu El Kasim’s name proclaims his Arab parentage, despite the fact that he is spoken of as a Spanish surgeon, and the conviction is deepened by the fact that he spoke of the Arabs in Spain as confining themselves to couching in the treatment of cataract, showing he was in intimate touch with them. Nor must we forget to mention the work of Haly Abbas, and of his distinguished son Jesu Haly.