BLIGHT BLIND. 



565 



celve the favour of God, The same importance was 

 coon attributed to blessings conferred by a priest 

 The heathens, the Jews, and many Christian sects, 

 have cherished this idea. By the Jewish institutions, 

 certain benedictions were reserved to the priest : the 

 same is the case in the Romish church, in which 

 different benedictions are appropriated to differenl 

 degrees of the clergy. We shall mention only a few 

 of them. The Catholic bishops alone can confer 

 those benedictions which are connected with unction, 

 and are called consecrations, as, for instance, the 

 consecration of kings and queens, of the cup and 

 patera, the church and altar. To them, also, is 

 confined the benediction of abbots and abbesses, of 

 knights, and the holy oil. For the benediction of 

 the holy vestments, &c., they may employ a substi- 

 tute. Every Catholic clergyman may confer the 

 benediction fiantfale (that of betrothment) ; also, the 

 marriage benediction ; may bless the fruits of the 

 earth, and the holy water. The benediction of a 

 bishop is eagerly sought for by a faithful Catholic, as 

 contributing peculiarly to his spiritual welfare ; and 

 the Catholic clergy, in general, use the Benediction 

 as a salutation, or reward for a service, &c. When 

 the pope rides or walks out, the Catholics kneel to 

 receive his blessing, which he gives by a motion of 

 his hand. In his antechamber are often seen things 

 of different^kinds, rosaries, &c., in large quantities, 

 which he blesses in passing by. The Catholic church 

 blesses things animate and inanimate, and this is be- 

 lieved by many to preserve them from sickness, in- 

 jury, &c. (See Agnes, St.) Among several Protestant 

 sects, the benediction, at the close of the sermon, is 

 in the form given by Moses. This is the case with 

 the Lutherans. Catholics, in many cases, use the 

 consecrated water in giving the benediction. 



BLIGHT; a general name for various distempers 

 incident to corn and fruit-trees. The term has been 

 used in a very vague and indefinite manner. The 

 origin of the disease has been variously accounted 

 for. There appear to be at least three distinct species 

 of it. The first originates in cold and frosty winds, 

 in spring, which nip and destroy the tender shoots of 

 the plant, by stopping the current of the juices. The 

 leaves wither and fall ; the juices burst the vessels, 

 and become the food of numerous insects, which are 

 often mistaken for the cause of the disease, while 

 they are really an effect of it. The second species 

 originates in a sultry and pestilential vapour, and 

 happens in summer, when the grain has attained its 

 full growth. The third originates in fungi, which 

 attack the leaves or stem of herbaceous and woody 

 plants ; but more generally grasses, and particularly 

 the most useful grains. It generally assumes the 

 appearance of a rusty- looking powder, which soils the 

 finger when touched. There are several sorts of these 

 fungi, known to farmers under the names of red rust, 

 red gum, &c. The only means of preventing the 

 effect of blight is proper culture. Palliatives are to 

 be found in topical applications. 



BLIND, the ; such as are deprived of their sight. 

 The loss of the noblest sense, by means of which man 

 receives an idea of the world that surrounds him, 

 clothed in light and colour, is an event as melancholy 

 as it is frequent. Blindness is different, 1. in its 

 degrees, some persons being partially blind, retaining 

 a slight perception of light, with the power of distin- 

 guishing very brilliant colours, and the general out- 

 lines of bodies ; others being entirely deprived of the 

 faculty of seeing; 2. in its causes: some men are 

 blind from their birth; others have become blind 

 by local diseases of the eyes, for instance, by inflam- 

 mation, suppuration, cancer of the eye-ball, spots, 

 films, tumors on the cornea (by which its transparency 

 is destroyed), also by closure of the pupil, by a turbid 



state of the humours, by a debility of the optic nerve, 

 or by general diseases of the body, violent fevers, 

 nervous fevers, plethora, and tendency of the blood 

 to the head, erysipelas in the face, small-pox, scarlet 

 fever, &c., or by excessive exertion of the eyes, by 

 which the optic nerve is enfeebled ; for which reason, 

 some classes of mechanics and artists, as blacksmiths, 

 labourers in glass and smelting-houses, watch-makers, 

 &c. not unfrequently lose their sight, and, in northern 

 countries, which are covered with, snow for a long 

 time, and which dazzle the eyes by the reflection or 

 the sunbeams, as well as in the sandy deserts of Afri- 

 ca, blindness is a frequent complaint. Old age is 

 sometimes accompanied with blindness, occasioned by 

 the drying up of the humours of the eye, or by the 

 opacity of the cornea, the crystalline lens, &c. There 

 are several causes which produce blindness from the 

 birth. Sometimes the eyelids adhere to each other, 

 or to the eye-ball itself, or a membrane covers the 

 eyes ; sometimes the pupil of the eye is closed, or 

 adheres to the cornea, or is not situated in the right 

 place, so that the rays of light do not fall in the mid- 

 dle of the eye ; besides other defects. Those who 

 are born blind have no idea of vision, and are entirely 

 destitute of all the ideas derived from the sense of 

 sight. They cannot, therefore, be sensible of their 

 misfortune in the same degree as those who have lost 

 their sight at a later period. Experience has shown, 

 that those who acquire the power of seeing after being 

 born blind, or having lost their sight in their child- 

 hood, form very different ideas of visible objects from 

 other persons. A young man, whom Cheselden 

 couched for a cataract, at the moment he received 

 sight, imagined that all the objects which he saw 

 were in contact with his eyes : he could not distin- 

 guish objects, although of very different forms. 

 Those with which he was already familiar by the 

 touch, he examined with great attention, in order to 

 recognise them another time ; but, having too many 

 things to notice at once, he soon forgot all that he 

 had observed. He wondered that those persons 

 whom he loved most were not handsomer than others. 

 Before he received his sight, he had expressed a 

 great desire to obtain this sense. The other senses 

 of persons, who have been blind for a long time, be- 

 come more exquisite, perhaps, because they are not 

 subject to the distraction produced by the sight of so 

 many objects. The blind, therefore, are often dis- 

 tinguished for a remarkable mental activity, and a 

 wonderful developement of the intellectual powers. 

 Their touch and hearing, particularly, become very 

 acute. Thus it is related of a blind man, who lived 

 at Puisaux, in France, and was a chemist and musi- 

 cian, that he could accurately estimate the propor- 

 tions of objects, could judge of the distance of fire by 

 the degree of heat, determine the quantity of fluid in 

 vessels by the sound it produced while running from 

 one vessel into another, and the proximity of objects 

 by the effect of the air upon his face. He determined 

 very accurately the weights of bodies and the capa- 

 cities of vessels. The celebrated Saunderson, pro- 

 fessor of mathematics at Cambridge, lost his sight in 

 lis early youth. He invented several processes to 

 acilitate his studies in arithmetic and geometry. His 

 sense of touch was so acute, that he distinguished 

 spurious coins merely by letting them pass through 

 lis fingers, though they were so well executed, that 

 ven SKilful judges were deceived by them. 

 BLIND, INSTITUTIONS FOR THE. In the case of per- 

 sons destitute of sight, it is necessary to have recourse 

 ;o the other senses to supply the want of the eye. 

 f, for instance, we wish to teach them the arts of 

 reading and writing, letters must be prepared, which 

 will be palpable to the touch, and the hand guided 

 until they are able to copy them. If we wish to 



