586 SIGHT. 



simply inwards ; and why the inferior pulled it inwards and 

 upwards, being no longer antagonised by the upper; just as 

 the muscles of one half the face draw the features to their side 

 if their antagonists of the other half are paralysed. Not one 

 experiment mentioned by him shows the oblique muscles to be 

 involuntary. He says that when we wink, we draw the eyes up 

 under the upper lid. Now we can wink voluntarily : and, if the 

 eyes do ascend in winking, which I do not believe e , why should 

 they not ascend by the superior straight muscles ? His ideas on 

 the action of the oblique muscles seem all confusion. At one 

 time he says that the superior oblique moves the pupil downwards 

 and outwards, the inferior upwards and inwards, and that " their 

 combined action draws the eye-ball towards the nose" (p. 312.) : f 

 at another (p. 327. sq.), that the eye rolls upwards and inwards, 

 when they are balanced : at another (p. 314-.), that, if the superior 

 is prevented from acting by being divided, the eye equally 

 turns upwards and inwards; and, indeed, (p. 315.) that the inferior 

 gains in power of elevating the eye-ball by the division of its 

 opponent the superior, and that is its own proper action. In 

 many places (pp. 294-. sq. 298. 303. 316. 326.) he speaks simply 

 of the eyes turning upwards in winking and sleeping, and refers 

 this to the combined action of the two obliques, neither of which, 

 nor both together, are able, or are supposed by him, to simply 

 elevate the eye. He is farther confused, for, although he con- 

 tends that the obliques are involuntary muscles and act in wink- 

 ing and for expression in the waking state, he says " that in 

 sleep, faintness, and insensibility, the eye-ball is given up to the 

 one (the oblique), and in watchfulness, and the full exercise of 

 the organ, it is given up to the influence of the other (the 

 straight) class of muscles." (p. 292.) 



Again, I presume that, when the cornea moves straight under the 



e To show that, in winking, the eye turns up as the eyelids close, he mentions 

 a case of inflammation of the cornea through the immobility of the eyes and 

 eyelids. If the eye could have moved, the immobility of the eyelids would not 

 have had this effect : nor would it have resulted if the eyelids only could have 

 moved. But this case is no proof that the eye naturally turns up in winking, 

 and that the motion of the lids alone is not sufficient to preserve the eye moist 

 and prevent inflammation. 



f I make the references to the paper as printed with others by him in one 

 octavo volume, under the title of An Exposition of the Natural System of the 

 Nerves of the Human Body. 1824. 



