4 
Mr. Home’s Lecture 
complaints in his eyes were evidently rendered worse; this 
effect, however, depended solely on the state of mind, for as 
soon as ever he recovered from his distress, the eyes also re- 
turned to their former state. In this condition I first saw him 
in the year 1 795 ; and, at that time, his eyes had no external 
mark of disease, and were moved by the muscles in every di- 
rection without the smallest uneasiness. He could look at any 
thing that was at some distance, as the furniture in the room, 
the passing objects, &c. with perfect ease ; but whenever he 
attempted to adjust the eyes to near objects, the effort gave so 
much pain, that although he succeeded in seeing them, he was 
almost immediately obliged to desist. Every attempt to write 
or read gave so much pain, that he became unable to do either ; 
but as soon as the strain produced by such an effort was taken 
off, he was at ease. His disease therefore consisted in a want 
of power to adjust the eyes to near objects for a sufficient 
length of time to render them distinct, which of course inca- 
pacitated him from reading or writing. The cause of this 
disease appears to me to be a morbid affection of the straight 
muscles of the eyes, which allows them to perform all their 
intermediate contractions as usual, but not the extreme degrees 
of contraction without considerable pain. 
As these symptoms have not, I believe, been before accounted 
for in this way, it may appear to many who have not seen similar 
affections of other muscles, that the present opinion is rather 
theoretical than practical; it will therefore be satisfactory to illus- 
trate this disease in the muscles of the eye, by examples of the 
same kind of morbid action in other muscles, more within the 
reach of common observation. The following instances all 
refer to the muscles of the fore-arm and hand, employed in 
