130 FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



but only when turned reel and in a clnysalis state, 

 on no account when fresh and alive from the carrion 

 in which tliey were bred. The diseases which 

 usually attack the young birds are ^Hhe gapes," 

 ^^the cramp," and a species of '^cholera," accom- 

 panied by blindness — a very strange blindness, for 

 it consists not in the pupil of the eye, but in the 

 closing of the lids. In this case of superficial 

 blindness, the eyes of the young birds must be 

 opened several times a day for them to feed, but 

 usually before they have had time to get a suffi- 

 ciency of food the lids close up again. A weak 

 solution of camphor for the eye, and a camphor 

 pill of about the size of a small pea, are remedies 

 recommended J but I knou: no certain cure for any 

 of these complaints : rue - tea, nettle-tea, alum- 

 water, water imjDregnated with rusty iron, all of 

 these may be given them to drink ; but though 

 some of the patients recover under some of these 

 remedies, all seems to me to depend on efforts 

 of nature better than on outward apj^lication or 

 internal medicine. Of course, if a man recom- 

 mends an hitherto untried remedy, if the young 

 bird in the course of natural effort recovers, the 

 recovery is claimed as proof of a certain cure • 



