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Dr. William Mackenzie was one of the great pioneers of British ophthalmology in the 19th century. We present a newly-discovered manuscript in which Mackenzie described how he performed surgery for bilateral nuclear sclerosis of the lens, in 1842–1843. This case became the focus for a discussion of the nature of "cataract" and "glaucoma" in the fourth edition of Mackenzie's great work, A practical treatise on diseases of the eye . Mackenzie is generally remembered as a great compiler of knowledge, but the text Mackenzie built around this case shows him pursuing original arguments based on his own observation. This case report gives us a vignette of Mackenzie that illustrates aspects of Mackenzie's character and achievements in an intimate way, and it dramatizes in a lively manner how some of the most fundamental concepts in ophthalmology evolved.

I N Stuart England the character of imperialism was national, stemming from a whole society. Almost unknown to the colonial and metropolitan governments of i660-i714, one seemingly placid English village -typical in its pattern of landed family, rustic tenantry, and mercantile connections moved men and capital helter-skelter over the sea to create a dusky sister community, one of the first sugar estates in Jamaica. Exceedingly rare in kind, the Helyar plantation manuscripts depict the British West Indian economy and society in days when the Caribbean was both hub and cockpit of European empires. The record begins in East Coker, Somersetshire, with Squire William Helyar and his enterprising brother Cary.' To be a landed gentleman in England's west country did not ensure innocence of trade. Even the Squire Westerns of the cider counties knew Bristol's worldly ships and a cloth trade based on the industry of household spinners and weavers. In the case of the Helyars, lords of the manor of East Coker, family ties with such merchants as the Carys of Bristol and Nicholas Warren of London increased the pull of commerce, despite a wish to make lands multiply. After the Restoration of the monarchy in i66o, Squire William Helyar, who had served and suffered as a colonel in Charles I's defeated army, received titles befitting broad acres as well as tested loyalty.2 It arouses no surprise, however, to find the justice of the peace and high sheriff shipping goods to Bilbao, deeply involved in the commercial adventures of Cary Helyar. Like other younger sons and brothers of England's gentry, Cary