Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 146:8

The blind. The large number of blind persons to be seen feeling their way along the streets in Cairo and Alexandria has been noticed by Volney. "Walking in the streets of Cairo", he says, "out of a hundred persons whom I met, there were often twenty blind, eighteen one eyed, and twenty others with eyes red, purulent, or spotted. Almost every one wears bandages, indicating that they either have or are recovering from ophthalmia." Ophthalmia is, in fact, one of the scourges of Egypt, as all physicians know. Its prevalence must be attributed in a great degree to the sand which the wind blows into the eyes; but one can understand how in Oriental countries in general the excessive heat of the sun must make blindness much commoner than it is with us. It is not therefore surprising to any one who knows the East to find the blind so often mentioned in the gospel history, and to meet in Scripture with so many allusions to this infirmity. Of the twelve maledictions of the Levites there is one against him "who maketh the blind to go out of the way": De 27:18. "The spirit of God hath anointed me", said Jesus, quoting from Isaiah, "to preach the gospel to the poor, and recovery of sight to the blind": Lu 4:19. "The Lord", says David, "setteth at liberty them that are bound; the Lord giveth sight to the blind." —Felix Bovet (1824 —), in "Egypt, Palestine, and Phoenicia," 1882.