s8 Mr. Home's Lecture , &c. 
to the general principles of the different branches of science, 
and to collecting facts out of which new principles may be 
formed, or those already known better established. 
The practice of applying very stimulating applications to 
the cornea has stood the test of twenty-five centuries, it can 
therefore require no support. The object of the present ob- 
servations has been to explain the principle upon which the 
beneficial effects depend, a knowledge of which may serve as a 
guide to regulate our practice. It will guard us against using 
such medicines while the inflammatory action is increasing, 
it will lead us to adopt them the moment the inflammation 
appears to be at a stand, and not postpone this practice till an 
indolent unhealthy state takes place, which too often termi- 
nates in opacities no applications can afterwards remove. 
