Dlfcnjls of the Eyes. 



rating rt hi water, nor are vegetable blues or purples In tlic 

 lead rendered green by dipping in fuch water. Indeed, tba 

 manufacturers of the article, which is one of the great fub- 

 je6ls of export from New York, know thai in clearing the 

 wildcrnefs, the trees, in order to alford pot-aili, mult be 

 burned ; if they are fufiered to rot, no alkali can be procured. 

 On the contrary the rollcn wood contains an acid. Did pot- 

 afh pn^.-exiil in the wood, why ihould it not be evolved by 

 putrefa6lion ? Thefe conlideralions, and the analogy of am- 

 moniac, load to a pcrfuafion, that this alkali and foda are 

 compounds. Whether, as fome have aflerted, carbon and 

 azote are the Ingredients, or whether there are other conili- 

 lucnt parts, are points not as yet fettled. 



DISEASES OF THE EYES. 



Dr. Mitchill of New- York ftates (Med. Rep. Vol. IV.) 

 a cafe of a girl whofe conftitution had been confiderably in- 

 jured by fiphylis, being afifccted^ in addition to that dileafe, 

 with an ugly and fcabby eruption over her face and neck, 

 and with an enlargement and inflammation of the lachrymal 

 iac of the right eye. Determining to defer the particular 

 treatment of tlrc jijlula lachrymalis until the general and 

 more urgent difeafe of her conftitutipn (liould have abated, 

 he prefcribed, befides other things, a weak folution of car- 

 bonate of foda in water as a lotion for her face. This had 

 the ufual efietH of dii'pofing the eruptions to dry away and 

 difappear in a few days ; but what he did not at all expect, 

 the fijlula lachrymalis difappeared too, under the continuance 

 of the alkaline wafli, and returned no more. 



Dr. Guthrie of Pctcrlburgh mentions (Duncans* Annals 

 of Med. for 1799) the remarkable efikacy of the effluvia of 

 fpirlts of turpentine in the cure of an old and obftinate cafe 

 ii't Dphthalmiii,\\\\\<:\\ had rcfifted all the common remedies. It 

 was difcovered by accident. Tiie patient, whofe difeafe had 

 arifen from a too affiduous emplo\ nient of his eyes on mi- 

 nute obje^ls, in the purfuit of his bufinefs, aggravated like- 

 wife by the painful affiftance of glalTes, firfl obtained relief of 

 the inflammation of his eyes by the effluvia of this fubftance^ 

 alone ; and aftcr\^•a^ds of the remaining afll'6lion of the eye- 

 lids 



