DISOHDEHEO EYE' Sv 



ftory, as in a living mirror, the fate which attends him % 

 and recoil from the practice with horror ! But you, 

 unhappy martyrs to this fo generous an impulfe, to whom 

 my warning voice is too late addrefTed ; and who already 

 perhaps think yourfelves the rnoft wretched of your 

 fellow-fufferers, perufe the hiftory of my pafr. afflic- 

 tions, and take comfort from the thought that they 

 have exceeded yours — perhaps both in magnitude and 

 duration exceeded yours — and yet were poffible to be 

 borne ; and yet finally were capable of very great al- 

 leviation ! But let all who read thefe pages be remind- 

 ed, in every affliction, of this confoling truth; that 

 no evil is fo. great as to jufrify us in defpairing of the 

 poffibility of being freed from it, either entirely, or to 

 a very tolerable degree T But to the bufinefs* 



The firft link of the uninterrupted feries of pain I 

 fuffered for almoft "twenty years, in the eyes, was oc- 

 casioned by the fmall-pox. With this diftemper I was 

 attacked in the. fourth year of my age. Both my eyes- 

 were clofed with tumours ; and from that time forward 

 all the heterogeneous humours of my body feemed un- 

 able to find any other iffiie than by the eye-lids. Hence 

 arofe on them, from time to time, little painful ulcers 

 which ufually bear the name of ftyes. To heal thefe, 

 rags dipped in warm wine were laid upon them. True 

 indeed, thefe ulcers, as is commonly the cafe, went 

 away by degrees : but, from after experience, I have 

 reafon to believe, that the warm wine did more harm 

 than good to my eyes. 



About my tenth year, the pus of otie of thefe ulcers 

 which had fettled exactly in the middle of one of the 

 lower eye-lids, notwithflanding the application of the 

 5 • warm 



