and distant Sight of different Persons. 35 



projection is considerable, vision is so much confused, that it 

 affords little or no service, and cannot be amended by any 

 glass. The cornea, in most of these cases, is preternaturally 

 thin, and not unfrequently it is accompanied with symptoms 

 of general debility; under which last circumstance chalybeate 

 medicines, and bracing applications to the eye, have been 

 found to afford considerable benefit. 



Near sightedness, to an alarming degree, has sometimes 

 attacked young persons suddenly. A remarkable case of 

 this kind came under my notice a few years ago in a young 

 gentleman at Westminster school, who had been attended by 

 Sir Gp:orge 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 ad- 

 viseable to send him for a few weeks into the country, and 

 to postpone the use of glasses. This advice was followed ; but 

 in ten days the afflicted youth died suddenly. No anatomical 

 examination of the head 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 pressure of a morbid sub- 

 stance of some kind or other on the source of the nerves in 

 the brain. 



Near sightedness is seldom ahke in the two eyes, and a few 

 cases have come under my observation, in which one eye of 



Fa 



