832 Memoirs of Erasmus Darwin, M.D. . 



made into pills with soap, soap alone, tin', milk, bitters. 

 More permanent use may be had from such drugs as check 

 fermentation, as acid or' vitriol ; .but still more permanent 

 relief from such things as invigorate the digestion, as a blis- 

 ter on the back ; a due quantity -of vinous spirit and water 

 taken regularly. Steel. Temperance. A sleep after dinner. 

 A waistcoat made so tight as slightly to compress the bowels 

 and stomach. A flannel shirt in winter, not in summer. A 

 less quantity of potation of all kinds. Ten black- pepper- 

 Corns swallowed after dinner. Half a grain of opium twice 

 a day, or a grain. The food should consist of such things 

 as do not easily ferment, as flesh, shell fish, sea-biscuit, 

 toasted cheese. I have seen toasted cheese brought up from 

 the stomach 24 hours after it had been swallowed, without 

 apparently having undergone any chemical change. 



StraMsnws, — Squinting is generally owing to one eye 

 being less perfect than the other ; on which account the pa- 

 tient endeavours to hide the worst eye in the shadow of the 

 nose, that his vision by the other may not be, confused. 

 Calves, which have an hydatide with insects inclosed in it 

 in the frontal sinus on one side, turn towards the affected 

 side ; because the vision on that side, by the pressure of the 

 hydatide, becomes less perfect ; and the disease being recent, 

 the animal turns round, expecting to get a inore distinct 

 view of objects. 



In the hydrocephalus interims, where both eyes are not 

 become insensible, the patient squints with only one eye, 

 and views oojects with the other, as in -common strabismus. 

 In this case it may be known on which side the disease ex- 

 ists, and that it does not exist on both sides of the brain; 

 in such circumstances, as the patients I believe never re- 

 cover as they are now treated, might it not be adviseable to 

 perforate the cranium over the ventricle of the affected side? T 

 which might at least give ropm and stimulus to the affected 

 part of the brain ? 



M. Mi If the squinting has not been confirmed by long- 

 habit, and one eve be not much worse than the other, a 

 piece of gauze stretched on a circle of whale-bone, to cover 

 the best eye in such a manner as to reduce the distinctness 



of 



