VOL. LXXXVII.j PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 7Q 



home ; in this however he succeeded by giving the reins to his horse. After a 

 night's rest the double vision was very much gone off; and in 2 or 3 days he went 

 again to the moors, when his complaint returned in a more violent degree. He 

 went to Edinburgh for the benefit of medical advice. The disease was referred to 

 the eye itself, and treated accordingly ; the head was shaved, blistered, and bled 

 with leeches. He was put under a course of mercury, and kept on a very spare 

 diet. This plan was found to aggravate the symptoms : he therefore, after giving 

 it a sufficient trial, returned home in despair, and shut himself up in his own 

 house. He gradually left off all medicine, and lived as usual. His sight was 

 during the whole time perfectly clear, and at the same time near objects appeared 

 single ; at 3 yards they became double, and by increasing the distance they sepa- 

 rated further from each other. When he looked at an object, it was perceived by 

 a by-stander, that the 2 eyes were not equally directed to it. The complaint was 

 most violent in the morning, and became better after dinner, when he had drank 

 a few glasses of wine. It continued for nearly a year, and gradually went off. 



The above account of the disease was given to me by the patient himself, who 

 is an intelligent man, soon after his recovery. It was considered as a curious dis- 

 ease, and I had several conversations with Mr. Ramsden respecting it. The more 

 we considered it, the more we were convinced that the disease had been entirely in 

 the muscles ; and this I explained to the patient at the time as my opinion. It is 

 now about 8 years ago, and the gentleman has had no return of the disease ; but 

 for 2 or 3 years past has lost in a great measure the use of his lower extremities, 

 being unable to walk alone. 



Some time after the recovery of this gentleman, a house-painter, who had 

 worked a good deal in white lead, was admitted a patient in St. George's Hospital, 

 on account of a fever, attended with a violent head ach. On recovering from the 

 fever, he was very much distressed at seeing every thing double ; and as the fever 

 was entirely gone, he was put under my care for this affection of his eyes. On 

 inquiry into his complaints, I found them exactly to correspond with the case I 

 have just described, and therefore treated them as arising entirely from an affection 

 of the muscles. I bound up one eye, and left the other open : he now saw objects 

 single, and very distinctly, but looking at them gave him pain in the eye, and 

 brought on head-ach. This led me to believe that I had erroneously tied up the 

 sound eye ; the bandage was therefore removed to the other eye, and that which 

 had been bound up was left open. He now saw objects without pain, or the 

 smallest uneasiness. He was thus kept with one eye confined for a week, after 

 which the bandage was laid aside ; the disease proved to be entirely gone, nor did 

 it return in the smallest degree while he remained in the hospital. Rest alone had 

 been sufficient to allow the muscles to recover their strength, and thus produced 

 a cure. 



A repetition of cases, I am very sensible, is not the most pleasing mode of con- 

 veying information, except to medical men. I have therefore selected those only 

 which are absolutely necessary to explain the different phenomena of the diseased 



