34^ DISORDERED EYES. 



out a comforting friend or any chearing companion, 

 without any other occupation than that of feeling the 

 incerTant fhootings of pain in his eyes, and of wander- 

 ing in melancholy thoughts over fo black a futurity to 

 him ! Till now I had been able to employ myfelf in 

 refi.ecr.ing on philofophical fubjecls, whenever I could 

 no longer read or write : but now the gloomy thought 

 of what it might reduce me to, lay fo heavy and op- 

 preffive on my heart, that all delire and capacity for 

 thinking on any thing elfe was entirely gone. The 

 impreffion which all this made upon my mind, will 

 never, I am afraid, be quite effaced. 



I called in the advice of fome of the mofl fkilful 

 phytic ians and furgeons of Berlin. Of whom one pre- 

 fcribed me lenitive, another ftrengthening, and a third 

 cooling medicines. One while I muft hold my eyes 

 over the fteam of boiling herbs ; then I muft drop into 

 them camphorated water, and then ftroke them with a 

 refrigerating ointment of quinces. But the firfr. of 

 thefe medicines was of no other ufe than to debilitate 

 in a higher degree the nerves of my eye-lids, already 

 fo extremely weakened ; the fecond increafed the in- 

 flammation, and the third was of no farther benefit to 

 me, than that, during the moment I was applying it 5 

 it procured me an agreeable fenfation of coolnefs. The 

 worft of all was an eye-water, impregnated with cam- 

 phor, which a famous furgeon in Berlin had invented, 

 and the falutary effects whereof had been extolled to 

 me by numbers that had ufed it. With me the con- 

 fequence of ufing it, was, that my eyes were continu- 

 ally more fenlible to light and air, notwithstanding 

 they were fo much accuftorned to the refrefhrnents of 



this 



