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Thirty towns in the State appear to be especially favored; their inhabitants report themselves exempt from the infirmity under consideration. But none of these towns have more than 3,000 inhabitants, and their aggregate population is less than two per cent of the population of the State.

Of the total number of the blind, 1,407 are males and 1,105 are females. In proportion to the population, the former are as one to 564 of the whole number of males, and the latter are as one to 775 of the whole number of females; in other words, there are 18 males blind in every 10,000 of the male population and 13 females blind in every 10,000 of the female population. This excess of blindness among the males is undoubtedly due to the greater outdoor exposure of men, and to their greater liability to accidental injury. The following table exhibits the age distribution of those in Massachusetts who report themselves deprived of sight: --

It will be observed, that in childhood the proportion of blind persons to the general population is at the minimum. After the age of 40 years, the increase is progressive until, in advanced life, it is found that one person in every 31 is deprived of sight in greater or less measure. In childhood, both sexes share alike the infirmity of blindness; after the age of 20 and until the age of 70, blind men are in excess of blind women; after the age of 70, females are more numerous than males in this class, the excess corresponding nearly with the excess of females in the general population above the age mentioned.

Of the total number of persons reporting themselves blind, 201, or one in 12 of the whole class, are described as "blind from birth." According to the latest English census, the proportion of the born blind to the total of blind persons was one in 11 in England and Wales.

Among the matters included in a study of blindness in any community, the cause or causes of the infirmity are of obvious interest and importance. Information upon this point, so far as Massachusetts is concerned, is afforded as one of the fruits of the late census. Of course, for very clear reasons, there can not be the same exactness in this part of the schedule as in the matters relating to sex, age and occupation, but of the answers returned a very large proportion show intrinsic evidence of genuineness. This being the first attempt to define the causes of the blindness among the people of the State with some detail, we can not make a comparison to show whether through improved skill in ophthalmic surgery, or from other causes, certain kinds of blindness are diminishing. The following table gives a numerical exhibit of the causes as they were returned in 1,618 cases, and includes those cases only which show tolerably well marks of accuracy. The sources of the information upon which this table is founded are to be remembered, and the conclusions to be drawn are subject to modification ac In many cases, the causes assigned are undoubtedly derived from medical consultation; in many more instances, probably in the majority, the decision is that of the sufferer himself, who is not expert in discovering an obscure real cause for his infirmity in the place of an apparent but erroneous one. Such names as amaurosis, cataract, Bright's disease, and glaucoma, indicate the intervention of professional skill in the case, while other assigned causes show quite plainly, that a coincidence has been made to stand as a substitute for the real agency in producing the effect.

Gunpowder has had a considerable part in the production of blindness in Massachusetts, the premature explosion of blasts being the chief cause of the injury. Frequently sight is totally lost by this accident, and in many more cases where one eye is destroyed the other follows its fellow by sympathetic inflammation. Accident by firearms, including the mischief done by percussion caps, is in the same class.