34 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1684. 



In the second letter are contained answers to certain questions, to the fol- 

 lowing effect. He was in this same state from the first time he was able to take 

 notice of things, and it came on without distempers. That it comes gradually 

 upon him as day-light declines. The various aspects of the moon cause no 

 difference. He feels no pain by fire or candle-light. He finds no difference 

 between winter and summer. He never observed any difference by taking cold. 

 He sweats much at work, but finds no inconvenience, neither observes any 

 difference as to his sight, on those days when he works hard, or not. 



The case now mentioned, though indeed in a different sense from that of 

 Hippocrates, is called by later writers nyctalopia, or nocturna caecitas, and is 

 accordingly described, with the remedies for it, by Galen, Pliny, Forestus, 

 Sennertus, and Joel. Celsus mentions it under the title of imbecilitas oculorum ; 

 but none of all these have given so exact and full a history of it as in the fore- 

 going relation.* 



To this unusual case I shall subjoin another relating to the same subject, 

 which I lately had the opportunity of observing here in St. Thomas's Hospital, 

 together with my friend Dr. William Dawkins, in a patient we had for some 

 time under our hands. 



The case was this ; Daniel Wright, aged about ] 9 years, of a sanguine and 

 plethoric constitution, about the end of the year l683, was seized with a dizzi- 

 ness and pain in the upper part of the head, which he could impute to nothing 

 but the excessive cold weather at that time. Having applied to an ignorant 

 pretender to physic, a plaster for his head was only ordered at that time, with- 

 out any evacuations. The patient upon this grew much worse, the pains of his 

 head more fixed and girding, to which succeeded convulsive fits, which were 

 accompanied afterwards with a tremor in his arms and legs; after which, all objects 

 appeared double to him. After this poor young man had been thus tortured by 

 this empiric and his distemper for about 3 months, he was taken into our 

 hospital. 



In this difHcult and extraordinary case, where the patient had been so long 

 afflicted, and the fits grew daily worse upon him, we endeavoured by all ways 

 we could to relieve him. Accordingly we ordered the cephalic pills, and an 

 electuary which we use in the hospital in epileptic cases, from which he received 

 much benefit : he was also at intervals bled in the jugulars, and in the haemor- 

 rhoids, and by leeches, which also relieved him; his head was shaved, blisters 

 applied to his neck, and a seton made sometime after, &c. But about two 



• This affection, night-blindness, is common in the tropical climates. It sometimes recurs 

 periodically, of which a remarkable instance has been recorded by the late Dr. Heberden. 



