CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 23 



In addition to the frt'cuu'iit disorders of the respiratory organs, rheumatistn and atlcclions of 

 the alimentary canal are (juite coniinon. The latter are itrincipally dne to overloading the stomach 

 after a long fast, and indigestion from this canse is so frequent that it is no uncommon thing to 

 find an Eskimo sutlering for several days from all the remorse of a guilty stomach. Tlie women, 

 too, are at times violently hysterical, and in this respect do not differ much from their more civilized 

 sisters. 



AFFECTJOXS OF THE EYE. 



Diseases of the eye and its appendages are quite numerous, and among them I noticed 

 several cases of opacity of the crystalline lens and of the cornea, and of fatty and pigmental 

 degeneration. Ophthalmia tarsi in its chronic form and granular inflammation of the conjunctiva 

 are common along with amblyopia and asthenojjia, and it is not at all unlikely that a specialist 

 might exhaust the oplithalnjological vocabulary in describing the diseases he might observe. 



Among these numerous eye diseases, liowevcr, 1 observed but two cases of total blindness; 

 one in a man at Saint Lawrence Island and another at Saint Michael's in a nati\e from the interior. 

 Mr. Petrotf, whose duties as census agent liave aflbrdcd him great facilities for observing the inte- 

 rior iDopnlatton, informs me that blindness is almost universal among the older people, most of 

 whom get blind on reaching the age of (ifty. This blindness, common also to the lower animals, 

 was once observed by iiim in a bear nt I'riiice William Sound. The bear with scv(M'al others 

 was seen approaching his party on the beach, and the singular actions of this particular bear 

 attracting attention, from the uncertain way in which he walked and was puslied about by the noses 

 of the other bears, it was singled out and shot, when an examination showed the previous existence 

 of total blindness, which of course accounted lor the odd movements of the animal. 



These eye affections are not caused by smoke as has been erroneously snpj)osed : they are 

 mostly the result of snow blindness, in which the sensibility of the end-organs, the rods and cones, 

 is diminished or exhausted by the prolonged illumination from the constant sunlight and the glare 

 from broad expanses of brightly glistening snow. The rarefaction of the arctic atmosphere, the 

 insufficient and impoverished condition of the blood brought about by bad feeding and the strumous 

 diathesis, may likewise be mentioned as predisposing causes. 



It may not be digressing from the subject to cite an observation of Mr. Edwards, surgeon to 

 Sir Edward Parry's second expedition, who has noticed in the Ilskimo wluit he believed to be a 

 rudimentary nictitating membrane resembling that which protects the eyes of some animals. The 

 peculiarity he points out as common to many individuals of Melville Peninsula, and consists in the 

 inner corner of the eye being covered by a dai)lication of the adjacent loose skin. This fold is lightly 

 stretched over the edges of the eyelids, covering the cariinculus lachrymalis, which in Europeans 

 is exposed, and forms, as it were, a third lid of crescentric shape. This singularity was ascertained 

 to be very remarkable in childhood, less so toward the adult age, and then frequently disappear- 

 ing altogether, the projiortion in -which it existed in grown up persons being small compared with 

 that observed among the young.* 



An interesting question in this connection is the form of the libres of the cones and rods in the 

 retina of the Eskimo. It is known that in animals, the habits of which are nocturnal, such as owls 

 and bats, the cones are wholly wanting, and rods alone are present ; so a ^'ariation may have 

 occuiTcd in tlie eye of the Eskimo in this particular as one of the results of his conflict with his 

 circumstances. But this is mere speculation, and the incorrect observation of Mr. Edwards, when 

 viewed in the light of more recent ophthalinological knowledge, would seem to be nothing more nor 

 less than a congenital defect, owing to the laxity of the skin at the root of the nose and of the folds 

 on a level with the inner canthus of the eye known as epicauthus, which often disapi)ears with the 

 development of the bones of the nose, and is remediable by an operation or the ai)plication of 

 electricity to the muscles of the face. 



Although applications from the Eskimo for " eye-medicine" were quite frequent, yet I was 

 unable to find out much regarding the means taken by them to treat or prevent eye diseases. In 

 the quaint old book of Hans Egede, a missionary who spent twenty-five years among the Green- 

 landers, is an account of an operation that he has seen Eskimo perform for removing a film from 



Edinbttigh Philosophical Journal, \o\. 36, 1844. 



