A practical essay on hemeralopia, or night-blindness, commonly called nyctalopia : as it affects seamen and others, in the East and West Indies, China, the Mediterranean, and all tropical climates ; in which a successful method of curing the disease is detailed / by Mr. R.W. Bampfield ... ; communicated by Dr. Roget.

  • Bampfield, R. W. (Robert William), -1827.
Date:
1812
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical essay on hemeralopia, or night-blindness, commonly called nyctalopia : as it affects seamen and others, in the East and West Indies, China, the Mediterranean, and all tropical climates ; in which a successful method of curing the disease is detailed / by Mr. R.W. Bampfield ... ; communicated by Dr. Roget. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in a manner precisely similar to those cases, which I have stated to be accompanied with constitutional symptoms, characteristic of deranged biliary se¬ cretion and disordered digestion ; and I am dis¬ posed to think, that they would have been more speedily cured ; for it is probable that the vapour of caustic volatile alkali acts upon the same prin¬ ciple as vesicatories, but perhaps with less active powers, and experience has convinced me, that increased secretion of bile is treated more sue* cessfully by purgatives than emetics. I should have been enabled, perhaps, to esta¬ blish the similitude, if not identity of those cases, with three of Professor Scarpa’s, in the treatment of which I have recommended attention to be paid to the constitutional symptoms, had I not, in my practice, always combined the use of the local with the constitutional remedies : but the inva¬ riable application of blisters in all those cases, where cathartics were exhibited to remove disorder of the digestive organs, prevented me from ascer¬ taining it with proper accuracy. Professor Scarpa’s cases (those noticed by him at page 513), and several that occurred in my own practice, render it probable, that there is a variety of symptomatic hemeralopia, depending on de¬ rangement of the liver and digestive organs. I do not perceive, that European varies from tropical hemeralopia, in its symptoms or history \ and as