ESSENTIAL OIL OF LEMONS. 
On the Use of the Essential Oil of Lemons in various 
Inflammations of the Eye; with Cases. By Joun Foorr, 
jun. Esq., L.S.A., A.M-B.S. 
(Read June 11th, 1833.) 
For several years past the use of stimulants in various ex- 
ternal inflammations of the eye has been gradually gaining 
ground. An opinion formerly prevailed, not only among 
the public generally, but also very extensively in the profes- 
sion, that the eye was a very tender organ, and would not 
bear rough handling. This idea tended in a great measure 
to retard the period when stimulant applications were first 
employed, and to induce great caution in their use. It was 
formerly the practice, in many inflammatory affections of this 
organ, to bleed, cup, and leech, to such an amount as fre- 
quently even to do serious injury to the constitution of the 
patient; such mischief indeed, that he would be years in 
ting over it, and perhaps might never entirely recover 
rom its effects. Even lately, within a few years, a work has 
been published by Mr. Lawrence, one of the surgeons to St. 
Bartholomew's Hospital, on the Venereal Affections of the 
Eye, recommending, in the gonorrhceal ophthalmia, that 
blood should be drawn as long as any could be obtained 
from a vein! And what does he present us with as the re- 
sults of his depleting practice? ‘Truly, a melancholy list of 
lost eyes. On the other hand, if we look to the reports of 
Mr. Guthrie on the stimulant plan of treatment in the same 
affection, we find success attend his practice. I have seen 
about six or seven cases of this highly dangerous ophthalmia ; 
they have been all treated on the stimulating plan, and have 
allinvariably ended successfully. Having been a pupil at the 
Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital for a period of 
nearly five years, I have had ample opportunities of testing 
the relative value of the stimulating and depletory plans of 
treatment, and, were all things equal, the fact that the for- 
mer saves the patient from that abstraction of blood which is 
= mc urged to a great amount, would alone be sufficient 
with me to give it the preference: but it has other advan- 
tages; it eflects a cure in a shorter period, and does not 
leave behind it, as the antiphlogistic plan generally does, a 
low or chronic inflammation of the parts, requiring a stimu- 
lant application to remove it. 
To Mr. Guthrie belongs the credit of having introduced, 
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