clxxviii 
APPENDIX. 
volved in so much obscurity; but it leaves the pathology of the disease very 
imperfect. 
The diseased condition of mind under which this poor man laboured, had 
been much aggravated by circumstances which only transpired a short time 
before his death. He had unfortunately a propensity to liquors, and it 
appeared that he had been in the habit of gratifying his desire by means of 
those illicit barterings among seamen, which it is so difficult to detect. A 
nocturnal incontinence of urine was the consequence, which had been a 
source of annoyance to his messmates, ending in a powerful antipathy to him, 
manifested in their unwillingness to assist him even in his sickness. The 
consciousness of this had evidently been long preying upon his mind. 
The above cases comprehended all in which scorbutic symptoms were 
manifest ; no other of the crew evinced the slightest disposition thereto ; 
although in the early part of April, in consequence of the serious loss of 
lemon-juice by the bursting of the bottles by the frost, it had been deemed 
necessary to reduce the consumption of it one-third ; and in the middle of 
June to discontinue it entirely. At this period the sorrel (Rimex Digynus, Linn.) 
began to vegetate, and the men were enjoined to gather daily a prescribed 
quantity ; during the whole of July it increased almost to exuberance, proving 
a most valuable antiscorbutic. 
In May two or three cases of pulmonic inflammation entered the sick-list ; 
and in June two of diarrhoea, among the parties employed in procuring game. 
Among the sportsmen, and also among the party which travelled across the 
island in June, a few cases occurred of that species of ophthalmia called snow- 
blindness, produced by the reverberation of the solar rays from the surface of 
the snow. The inflammation is not excessive, but the irritation is for many 
hours very distressing. Refrigerant applications, and in severe cases alternated 
with warm fomentations, generally allayed the irritation in twenty or thirty 
hours, and in three or four days the patient was fit for service. 
The foregoing remarks apply more particularly to the state of health r on 
board the Hecla, In the Griper the scorbutic symptoms were of a more 
