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Art. VI. — Miscellaneous Notices in Natural History^ py Pro- 
fessor Blumenbach, viz. 1. Account of the Snow Ophthal- 
mia, with the Methods employed in preventing it ; 2. Re- 
markable Irritability of the Tongue ; 3. The Xanthoopia 
of Jaundiced Persons ; 4 . On the Prickle of the Extremity . 
of the Tail of the Lion; 5. Domestic Sheep again become 
wild; 6. The Genuine Opsian Stone. 
1. Account of the Snow Ophthalmia , with the methods employed 
for preventing it. 
X^enophon, in his account of the expedition of the younger 
Cyrus, relates, that when the Grecian array was crossing the 
snowy mountains of Armenia, between the Euphrates and P ha- 
sis, in the middle of winter (which answers to the beginning of 
January according to our present mode of dividing time), many 
of the soldiers were blinded by the insupportable brightness 
of the snow; and that, with the intention of preventing or 
curing this annoying affection, they bound something black 
(piXav r<) before their eyes *. 
It appears that this snow ophthalmia, of which we sometimes 
see examples even among ourselves in the winter season, is en- 
demic in alpine and northern countries ; so that the Laplanders, 
when returning from the chase of the wild rein-deer, are for 
some days almost entirely destitute of sight f. The Greenland- 
ers are affected with this disease of the eyes chiefly in the 
months of May and June, and if it continue longer, they at- 
tempt its cure by making an incision in the skin of the upper 
eyelid J. The Esquimaux labour under this ophthalmia more 
especially when the surface of the snow, which covers the ground 
on all sides, has been partially melted, and again, by the action 
of frost, converted into a solid crust. To the incapability of 
bearing light, there is at first joined a disagreeable sensation, as 
if grains of sand had fallen into the eyes, which, as the disease 
advances, increases so as to resemble the effect of the strongest 
* iv. 5. p. 294-. 4th ed. of Hutchinson, Cainbr. 1785. 
t Kaud Leem on the Laplanders of F inmurk > p. 52. 
$ Crantz, Histoirc von Groenland , i, 297. 
R 2 
