400] 
sight. Besides, I ‘think, if we 
could suppose the eye to be so daz- 
zled by the light of the night as 
to be injured, the injury ought to 
fall upon the nerve, and not upon 
the eyelids and external parts. 
The nitrous particles with which 
Alpinus imagines the armnsphiers 
of Egy pt to be impregnated, will 
not, £ suppose, be considered as a 
cause more probable than any of 
the preceding > but the following 
passage may serve to give an idea 
of the nature of the complaint in 
question, and its. frequency, at 
Cairo. ‘* Plurimasque (oculorum 
lippitudines) Cayri easdemque per 
omnia anni tempora homines in- 
vadere ob nitrosum pulverem, gui 
continué oculos haditantium mor- 
dicat, & calesacit, observatur, longé 
maximéque in estatis prim& parte, 
quo tempore calor ambientis summé 
calidi oculos inflimmat, talium- 
que morborum numerum auget. 
Sparsim. vero per urbem toto anno 
he oculorum inflammationcs va- 
gantur; atque epidemica plurime in 
prima zstatis parte calidissima in- 
equalissimague ob vehementissi- 
mum * meridionalium ventorum 
caloyem, atgue = inflammataram 
arenarum copiam, que ab iisdem 
ventis asportantur. Eo enim anni 
tempore € centum hominibus quin- 
Quaginta salrem lippientes obser- 
vantur.’? (De Medicin. Agypt. 
p- 24). The Gyine sind muse be 
troublesome, and probably, in many 
Cases, supporis and increases the 
inflammation, and in some may 
give rise to it; but the following 
faét, which seems to me to render 
the indu€tion complete, shews that 
the true and general cause is the 
great inequality between the tem- 
ANNUAL REGISTER, 
1796. 
perature of the night and day ; to 
which cause signal effe€t is given 
by the practice of sleeping sé dis. 
Mr. Clarkson (in his-essay on the 
impolicy of the African slave. 
trade) informs us (p. 71), that, 
** when the slaves aré brought on 
board, the seamen, to make room 
for fier. are turned ont of their 
apartments between decks, and 
sleep, for the most part, either on 
deck or in the tops of the vessel 
during the whole of the middle 
passage ; or from the time of their ~ 
leaving the coast of Africa (where 
the days are excessively hot, and 
the dews are excessively cold and 
heavy, ibid. p. 68), to that of their 
arrival at the West-India islands.?? 
‘¢ From this bad lodging,’’ he pro- 
ceeds, ‘‘ and this continual expo. 
sure to colds and damps, and sud- 
denly afterwards to a burning sun, 
fevers originate which carry many 
of them off. Nor is this the only 
effect which. this continual, vicis. 
situde from heat to extreme damp. 
ness and poldneis has upon the sur- 
viving crew; inflammatory fevers 
necessarily attack them. ‘This fea 
ver attacks the whole frame ; the 
eye feels the inflammation most. 
This inflammation terminates either 
in dispersion or suppuration: in 
the first instance the eyes are saved; 
in the latter they are lost. 
The inflammation of the eye is 
not the only disease produced in 
Egypt by the succession of hot days 
to cool nights, any more than on 
board our slave-ships ; in both si- 
tuations causes and effects run pa. 
fallel, as the reader will find upon 
recurring to Alpinus and the later 
travellers. The well-known dan- 
ger of exposure to dews in hot 
* See Nicbuhr's Thermometuical tables in the first volume of his Travels. 
climates, 
