the near and distant Sight of different Persons. 333 
Near-sightedness, to an alarming degree, has sometimes 
attacked young persons suddenly. A remarkable case of 
this kind came ander my notice a few years ago in a young 
gentleman at Westminster school, who had been attended 
by Sir George Baker and Mr. Sutherland, on account of a 
variety of anomalous nervous symptoms. These had wholly 
left him before I was consulted ; and the consultation with 
me was solely for the purpose of determining whether he 
might be permitted to make use of concave glasses, and to 
return to the business of the school. The patient’s health 
at that time not being perfectly restored, it was thought 
adviseable to send him for a few weeks into the country, 
and to postpone the use of glasses. This advice was fol- 
lowed; but in ten days the afflicted youth died suddenly. 
No anatomical examination of the bead was permitted by 
the relatives. It seems, however, probable, that the near- 
sightedness, as well as the previous indisposition, no less 
than the death of the patient, were occasioned by the pres- 
sure of a morbid substance of some kind or other on the 
source of the nerves in the brain. 
Near-sightedness is seldom alike in the two eyes, anda 
few cases have come under my observation, in which one 
eye of the same person has had a near, and the other a 
distant sight. 
It has been said by Dr. Porterfield*, that the pupils of 
near-sighted persons are more dilated than those of others. 
This, however, does not accord with the observations I 
have made in such cases. 
It has also been commonly believed, that the size of the 
pupil is influenced by the distance of the object to which 
the attention is directed, this aperture being enlarged when 
the object is far off, and becoming more and more con- 
tracted as it is brought near. But though the activity of 
the fibres of the iris is sometimes snfficient to be visibly in- 
fluenced by this circumstance, yet in the greater number 
even of those cases where the dilatation and contraction of 
the pupil are powerfully influenced by a difference in the 
strength of the light, the distance of the object considered 
alone, produces so little effect upon it, as to be scarcely 
perceived. That it has, however, in general, some degree 
of power on the pupil is highly probable; and an extraor- 
aor instance of this kind exists, at the present time, in a 
lady between thirty and forty years of age, the pupil of 
whose right eye, when she is not engaged in reading, or in 
working with her needle, is always dilated very nearly to 
* Treatise on the Eye and the Manner of Vision, vol. ii. p, 38. 
the 
