The causes of loss of sight shortly stated and explained.

Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causes of loss of sight shortly stated and explained. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/16 (page 15)
    DistemperUs!’&c! SP‘een’ Vapours' Lowness of Spirits, Hypochondriacal; and Hysterical Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature’s works, to me expung’d and raz’d, And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.” Paradise Lost Book III. Such, then, is a short enumeration of the most frequent causes of loss of sight. That many poor people suffer this misfortune, from their own carelesness and neglect, or from trusting their eyes to persons un¬ acquainted with the principles and practice of the healing art, is a fact equally lament¬ able and notorious. That from some slight disorders, the eye, like other organs of the body, may occasionally recover, by means of its own inherent powers of restoration, is no reason why it should ever, even in apparently trifling diseases, be neglected; as it is impossible for the patient to know, whether what he feels in himself, or observes in another, be actually a trifling affection from which a natural recovery will take place, or the commence¬ ment of a serious disorder, which in a few days may destroy vision. On the other hand, that ignorant individuals may in some of the simpler affections, or accidents, to which the eye is liable, seem to themselves successful, or be able to persuade others equally ignorant as themselves of their success, can form no excuse for destroying at one time by their rude applications, and their total omission of fit means at other times, one of the most valuable gifts which