The Signs and Causes of Glaucoma and Cataract

Abstract

Glaucoma is when the crystalline lens thickens, whether due to smoke, a fly, hot vapours, and from this a cloud is installed at the pupil or it becomes thick as a hailstone, what is termed in Latin suffusion. This is the true cataract, often called primary, and if the dense opacity persists it fatigues the eye: and if it is the vapour mounting and returning, it will affect both eyes with its obscurity. The false cataract arises from a corrupt belly, and the cause of this is hot vapour of the bile which passes via the brain into the optic nerves, a wandering, deceptive, tyrannic humour: and the subtle humour passing along the nerve becomes established in the pupil and gradually obscures its aperture.