A treatise of the cataract and glaucoma : in which the specific definitions of those two diseases, and the existence of membranous cataracts, are clearly demonstrated. With a plain description of the methods of operating in all circumstances of either distemper ... / compiled from the dictates of Mr. Woolhouse, as taken from him in writing, by one of his pupils.

  • Woolhouse, John Thomas, approximately 1650-1734.
Date:
1745
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise of the cataract and glaucoma : in which the specific definitions of those two diseases, and the existence of membranous cataracts, are clearly demonstrated. With a plain description of the methods of operating in all circumstances of either distemper ... / compiled from the dictates of Mr. Woolhouse, as taken from him in writing, by one of his pupils. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/126 (page 9)
    the intereft of thefe men, in all ages, to confound Glaucomas and Cataradk toge¬ ther. It was but a prick of a needle, and they gained their money right or wrong, not waiting to have a judgment formed from the event : which could not be profperous to more than one fubjedt in twenty, becaufe there are certainly twenty Glaucomas for one real Cataradf. Ignorance, as well as avarice, might indeed have a great part in this popular error; molt of thofe that have cal¬ led themfelves oculifts, from the time of Juft us, who was contemporary with Galen, to our own days, having been illiterate per- fons, who performed that operation more by audacity than a true knowledge. Nay, the greateft part of them have been ftroi- lers, running from country to country like .ftage-players; and becoming dextrous in that particular operation of the needle, as well as in lithotomy, and the amputation of cancered breads, through the vaft multitude of fubjedts that fall under their hands. Some parts of Spain are full of this fort of moun¬ tebanks, who quarter Europe among them¬ felves twice a year, fpring and fall, to make their harveft in thefe three operations [0,] In [0] Mr. Woolhoufe knew one of thefe, who was famous in France,England, and Flanders,and fo dextrous at fixty-eight years of age, that at full arm’s length, he would run a needle thro' the fame hole, that he had made in a card. ' C fifty