Note 27 — PART SECOND. OF PARTICULAR SURGICAL SUBJECTS. (continued 3)

[Dr. Maunoir, of Geneva,28 relates a curious instance, strongly corroborative of the occasional hereditary tendency of this affection. While investigating this subject, he became acquainted with the history of a woman whose grandfather, uncle, two aunts, and two cousins, all on the paternal side, had had cataract, and who had all been operated upon. She herself, at the age of twenty, was attacked with it. Finally, out of four children which she had, one was born with cataract; and, what is remarkable, neither her father, mother, nor sisters, had ever had any affection of the kind. The same writer states that Roux once operated for this disease upon three brothers, whose father and grandfather had suffered similarly. A brother, much younger than themselves, had the affection in its incipient stage. Instances more frequently occur in which several members of a family are affected with cataract, without any traceable hereditary predisposition on the part of either parent. Professor Drake met with a case not long ago, where five out of nine children were blind from this cause; and last autumn I operated on two boys and a girl from Mississippi, who had lost their sight in a similar manner.—ED.]