judge at what period a child's eyes are strong enough to be exercised, but it seems clear that as early as this can be safely commenced a child's eyes should be gently and gradually induced to look at distant objects. The contrary method is almost invariably adopted, and very minute things are constantly placed before the child's vision, so that the imperfection and injury of near-sightedness is most commonly induced. We understand that it has been ascertained by actual experiment that the eye possesses more voluntary power with respect to distant objects than the mere contraction or expansion of the pupil. Dr. Priestley observed that the contraction of the pupil certainly tends to lessen all indistinctness of vision, whether the object be too remote or too near; and that the pupil is certainly not contracted but dilated for the purpose of viewing objects that are very remote, as without a dilatation of the pupil in such instances a sufficient quantity of rays could not be admitted.' Moreover, it has been shown by Dr. Porterfield, in a series of observations, that the human eyes possess a power of changing their conformation, and of adapting themselves to various distances. We certainly do not seem to possess this power in the same way that is observable in the eyes of a cat, but if we watch the eyes of an experienced sailor when far out at sea, we may often notice the variety of movements that take place in his eyes besides the dilatation and the occasional contraction, though the latter seems commonly done for a moment only, in order to assist the energies of the eye in a renewed process of dilatation.

During the early years of education the eyes of young people are tried too severely. They are kept too many hours in the course of each day at work that taxes the close attention of the eyes, such as the small types in which some grammars and all dictionaries are printed, small figures of arithmetic, extremely small types of maps; while with respect to girls they are often kept for hours at a stretch staring at musical notes, or close down upon the nonsense of fancy needlework, to be followed perhaps by drawing and painting the minute traceries and varied tints of flowers and leaves; after which, if the girls are at a boarding

school, they walk out not unlike 'a funeral procession,' followed by the teachers, and vigilantly watched lest they should use their eyes by looking about them. Boys and young men are more commonly near-sighted than girls and young women, because the reading and other studies are more severe, and prolonged through more years; still, there is a far larger number of near-sighted girls and young women than is generally supposed, because the use of spectacles, and even single eye-glasses, is not considered graceful and becoming, and they certainly add something to the apparent age of the wearers. I once knew a young lady in Canada, very handsome and well educated, who was so near-sighted that she often could not find her partner in the movements of a quadrille, and sometimes she even got astray from her own party into the adjoining set. But she could not be persuaded to dance in spectacles. I also knew a very handsome young German gentleman in Dresden, who was so comparatively blind by nearsightedness that he could not read without the use of a kind of glass cylinder of about an inch in thickness; and he never knew a friend in the street unless he heard his voice, or went up to him so closely that their noses almost touched. But he would not wear spectacles. This was a very remarkable thing in Germany, where the great majority of students, as well as professors and professional men, seem to wear spectacles as a necessary appurtenance and insignia of intellectual labors.

The late Charles Dickens had very peculiar eyes. They took in all objects, within more than a semicircle, at a single glance; but I never saw him use glasses except on one occasion. He was then living in London, and I at Finchley. Having stayed with him later than usual one night, he knew that I had lost all the public conveyances, and I was to be driven home in his American buggy. But there was a fog, and he would not trust groom or coachman, and drove me home himself, having first mounted a special pair of spectacles. Admirably he drove through the thick mist, at a good pace, and we chatting all the way, some five miles. What sort of glasses he could have found to effect any clearing in a London fog, quite puzzles me to

conceive. I so much regret now that it never occurred to me to ask him.

Many kindly cautions and pieces of advice are given by our friend, previously quoted, which will be useful to various classes. Some of these are scarcely practicable, on account of their inconvenience; others are sure not to be adopted because of the inveteracy of our habits. That is not to the purpose. Here they are take them, or leave them. We all know very well that sitting for hours, and bending over a desk, or a flat table (which is far worse) is injurious to health, and that it would be very good to vary the position by doing the same work, when practicable, at an upright desk in a standing position. But our long-confirmed habits are against this; moreover, the change would, almost to a certainty, break the train of thought, distract the attention, and lead the energies astray. Ten to one, but such a change would cause the individual to 'take a turn round the houses,' and amuse himself for an hour or more. This advice also, unfortunately, would be quite impracticable for many artists and artisans. The painters could of course adopt it, and they do so; but the engravers could not, I believe, and I am sure the watchmakers, lace-makers, and some others could not. The violin student usually stands up at his practice, but the student of the violoncello and the pianoforte must be seated. And so with many arts and handicrafts. But the injurious habit of working with a frame of white paper placed before a sunny window, or with a glass globe o water at night, might certainly be abandoned without any great effort.

All these paper frames, as well as screens and lamp shades, ought to be of a pale green or light blue. In working at or near a sunny window, the pale green paper frame should be placed obliquely, and the reader or worker should sit at a table or desk "so that the light shall fall obliquely over the left shoulder." If you sit with the light coming over the right shoulder, then the shades and movements of the right hand will rather disturb the equability of the surface and the vision. But our friend recommends candles at night, in preference to a lamp, considering that a generally-diffused equality of light is

Two

better for the eyes than a concentrated reflected light. He scouts tallow, of course, and assures us that we must never burn anything but wax. wax candles—that is the proper arrangement for a literary gentleman at night. Our friend does not insist upon green wax, though green wax would be best for the purpose. This reminds us, at first, of the physicians who strongly recommend the exercise of horse-riding to patients, regardless of circumstances; but, on consideration, and, let me add, after experiments, I find that our professional adviser is perfectly right in all respects, for a good wax candle will burn a very much longer time and with less waste than tallow, or even the epicene composite, and therefore is not really much more expensive, besides the inestimable blessing of not distracting the attention by thieves and gutterings, or the base need of snuffing; not to speak of the plebeian nasal offensiveness of a slowly-expiring mutton snuff. It is worth noting, also, that those persons who happen to have thin eyebrows, or thin eyelids, and very small pale eyelashes, would do well to wear a broad green shade attached to the forehead by means of an elastic band, in addition to the previous arrangements, if their avocations require them to use their eyes during half the night. Never hold a book or other writing behind the candle

that is, with the glittering flame right in your face while you strain your eyes in looking through the illumination; and do not in the daytime, or evening, sit reading with your back to the window, because the rays of light are too directly reflected; and the injury will be greater in proportion as the paper shall be more white, or the print finer.' Mark this, all youthful readers of the cheap editions of sensational novels, printed in double columns, of the smallest type very much the worse for wear, badly printed and with faded ink, upon bad paper of uneven surface. Stupid economy! and no real economy, but the reverse in its ocular results. Be it remembered that it is good to vary the occupation of reading by writing at intervals, and that writing, especially at night, is less trying to the eyes than reading. One reason of this is, I think, that you can write the letters of words anyhow so that they are

legible (and you will often see legible handwriting in which scarcely a single word has the letters reaily made, or possible to be deciphered if cut out from the context), but in the act of reading the eye habitually looks at the letters of the words, however rapidly and unconsciously. It is also much better to write a large than a fine small hand; but when there has been a long habit of writing very small it will be found extremely difficult to make a change. I do not consider any of the foregoing advices and cautions as trivial, because so many persons pass the greater part of their lives in reading or writing.

Our friend alludes to the very trying work of engravers; and we must not forget what we owe to those who gradually, yet certainly, destroy their sight over copper and steel as well as gems. The watchmakers, likewise, receive attention; and all those whose avocations unfortunately compel them to work on higly-polished surfaces, by lamp or candle-light, receive due cautions. He has operated on many cataracts which were clearly attributable to that cause. Blacksmiths, whitesmiths, farriers, and cooks come in for their share of professional advice, and one of his chapters thus concludes:-'To workers in silk, also, I would recommend that the same person' (silk weavers' eyes being too much affected by the shining colors of the silk) 'should not be employed to hang the silks out in the open air, nor even in tenter grounds, as the continual reflection of so many different colors may be highly prejudicial. To bleachers of linens and cottons, and to all persons engaged in those manufactures, similar cautions may be given; nay, even practical chemists and philosophers need not disdain to avail themselves of hints on things which might otherwise be unthought of in their ardent pursuit of knowledge.' What a kind, what an excellently benevolent man is our friend the 'Experienced Oculist!' How wide are his sympathies, how careful and discriminating are his advices and his cautions! How admirably practical a little book he has produced as the condensed result of many years of extensive practice and much thought! And here am I, a mere amateur and an empiric, gaining credit, and profit too, by exhuming and reviving his long-forgotten re

mains, and all this without being able to give the name of so genuine a philanthropist! But I do not despair of discovering it some day, and making it known, as I think it deserves.

Now it may be thought by some persons that, as these exhumed remains are some sixty years of age in the vaults of Time, where mists and mouldy films hang obscuring festoons over those who lie in cold obstruction,' while the vigorous working world has rumbled on its busy purblind course, and all sorts of new oculists and opticians, with all manner of new discoveries, experiences, operations (as in the cure of squinting), instruments and appliances, lotions and treatments, have probably sprung into light; it may, I say, be reasonably imagined that very much of our friend's professional experiences and deductions have been superseded. So I determined to consult the best books on eyes and eye-glasses that have been published during the last fifty years, and the best living oculists and opticians. But besides the fact of the progress of knowledge, a certain statement by our friend, of a surgical nature, startled me. It was this, that while the slightest wounds, even the most insignificant accidents, if accompanied by contusion, are always extremely dangerous, it is a curious and important fact that the human eye will bear the deepest incisions, done with cutting instruments, without any serious detriment to the sight.' If the reader be as new to the subject as I was, he will understand my feeling on first meeting with such a statement, and I at once made up my mind to consult some other 'experienced oculist' who had the advantage of being alive. After this I would examine the best books of the day on our present subject, which is unquestionably so important to the whole civilized world, and to the uncivilized also; but you cannot help everybody.

Full of these things, I forthwith paid a visit to one of the first oculists of the day-Mr. William White Cooper, a 'fellow' of infinite titles, particularly with regard to ophthalmic societies and institutions.

'Give me leave, Mr. Cooper, to ask if you could cut my eye right across, with safety to my eye?'

'Yes, certainly, if you had a cataract.'

'But should I be able to see with that eye, after it?'

In all probability. I have performed the operation a hundred times.'

'And should I see as well as before?' 'Yes, if it were not an unusually bad case. But we do a great many things for the human eye besides cutting it arcoss.'

I returned home immediately, seeing my way much clearer in these matters, and, of course, with renewed respect for my old-fashioned friend from the bookstall. The first work of the present day which I examined was Mr. White Cooper's treatise On Wounds and Injuries of the Eye. The number and variety of the cases was most interesting; and we shall there find that, while 'the delicacy and complexity' of the structure of the human eye render every injury important, there is no organ in which the reparative powers of nature are more remarkable.' And again, 'that wounds of the eye are far less painful than might be imagined.' When a particle of grit, or lime-dust, or sharp flying seed-husk, gets between the surface of the eye and the eyelid, and causes such irritation, inflammation, and aching pain, we very naturally think that an operation of the simplest kind must be so intensely painful; but this is imaginary. Here are two or three very curious cases. A musket-ball struck a soldier of the 88th Regiment, entering behind the outer side of one eye, passing behind the bones of the nose, and making its exit just beneath the ear on the other side. Yet neither of his eyes appeared to have been organically injured. The sight, however, was lost in both, by reason of the concussion injuring the optic nerves. The wound gave little trouble,' says Mr. Cooper,' and the soldier was invalided to England, well, about a month after its receipt.' Sir Charles Bell relates a case of a soldier (in his System of Operative Surgery, vol. ii. p. 452) who received a bullet in the globe of the eye, where it stuck fast (a spent ball, of course) by the elastic tissues arresting its progress.' And there it remained, 'not from any surgical difficulty,' but because the soldier had an eye to business. It was something to be looked at ever after. The soldier with a leaden eye said it was 'too

valuable to be extracted.' During the retreat from Corunna a soldier of the 36th Regiment, who was cooking his comrades' dinners while they were away skirmishing with the enemy, was struck by something under the left eye. 'Dr. Barton extracted from the socket a musket-ball, flattened so much as to resemble a piece of money from its having first struck against a wall in front of the man. The eye did not suffer in the least,' although the soldier had a very anxious march the same night, with the enemy at their heels. Dr. Macleod (in his Surgery of the Crimean War, p. 223), relates a case in proof of how little injury and inconvenience may be caused by the immediate vicinity of a bullet to the eye :- A soldier was struck at the battle of the Alma by a round ball, which entered close to, and immediately below, the inner canthus of the eye. The wound healed, and the patient had almost forgotten the circumstance, when, after suffering slightly from dryness in one nostril some months afterwards, the ball fell from his nose, to his great alarm and astonishment.' At the siege of Calvi, when Lord Nelson was in command, a shot struck a battery close by, and Nelson was hit in the face by some of the stones and fragments. Though the injury destroyed the sight of one eye, it did not confine him from duty longer than a single day. In most instances, however, we should bear in mind that the eyes are protected by the instinctively rapid movements of the eyelids. Mr. Cooper once wrote to a prizefighter to inquire if there were many cases of blindness caused from blows on the eyes?

He received the following reply from Jem Ward,' formerly a celebrated champion of England':

King's Arms, Whitechapel Road, London, Dec. 16/58. Dear Sir, I rec'd your letter, and have in reply to say that in the course of my experience I do not recollect blindness to follow in consequence of blows rec'd in a prize fight. There is, I believe, one or two instances of men haveing negested (sic) their eyes, caught cold, and lost their sight. I have seen men's eyes completely shut up from blows, and yet their sight was not at all injured. dr. Sir, yr. obdt. Servt., W. Cooper, Esq. JAMES WARD.

I am,

Mr. Cooper accounts for the preservation of the eyes under these violent blows

by the magnitude of the fist causing the blow to be received upon the protecting frontal and cheek bones, and also by the instinctive closing of the eyelids. No doubt he is right. Moreover, it is remarkable how soon a very badly contused black-and-purple eye is relieved by being bound up with relays of raw steak. But, to my thinking, the most wonderful of all human dealings with the eye is that of giving to the eye a new pupil, so to speak, or of removing a wounded pupil from one place to another, which amounts to conveying vision to a new locality! A little girl was laying her cheek caressingly upon a wolf-dog, supposed to be domesticated, when the ferocious beast suddenly seized her by the face, which he was only prevented from tearing to pieces by her long hair getting into his throat. It was found that one of his teeth had penetrated the eyeball. Mr. J. E. Mathews and Mr. White Cooper attended the little girl. The pupil of the eye had been dragged towards the margin of the corner, and the displacement entirely prevented sight. In a few weeks the child was chloroformed, and Mr. Cooper then 'made an incision through the cornea below the mesial line, and with Tyrrell's blunt hook drew down the margin of the pupil and fixed it in the wound. No inflammation followed. The pupil being well below the margin of the lid, perfectly good vision was restored.' The disfigurement of the little girl's eye was much less than might have been expected.

Dr. David Smith (in his Lectures on Preservation of Sight) tells us that 'in Glasgow and its neighborhood alone, in connection with various crafts, probably not less than one thousand injuries of the eye are received in one year.' Out of these he considers that one half are due, as usual, to the carelessness of the men. That flying morsels of metal or stone continually endanger the sight nobody can doubt; but when Dr. David Smith tells us that 'in almost all cases in which a foreign body penetrates the eyeball immediate and irreparable loss of the injured eye follows,' the experience of most of the great living oculists goes very far towards controverting the assertion. I will only quote two more of these wonderful operations. The fol

lowing extraordinary cure is recorded in the Ophthalmic Review, page 337: 'C. W., a hale, vigorous old man, turned seventy-three years of age, fell downstairs in the dark, being very drunk at the time.' On recovering himself he found that he had a bad wound in the right eye, on the side near the nose. He neglected the swelling during ten days or more, and then went to Mr. Alfred Clarke, of Gloucester, who discovered the extremity of some iron substance in the wound. After tugging hard many times, Mr. Clarke at last pulled out the entire shaft of a cast-iron hat peg, measuring three inches and three-tenths in length.' The old man, it was discovered, had fallen head foremost upon a row of hat pegs screwed to the wall in his tumble down-stairs, and this one had broken off after it had become completely buried in his orbit.' The nature of the wound of the globe' and its cure are described, and in result 'the patient recovered without a single unfavorable symptom.' The only inconvenience to the old man was that he occasionally shed a few involuntary tears, at which one cannot feel much surprised. If the reader has a taste for these operations he will find more of them in A Handy-Book of Ophthalmic Surgery, by J. Z. Laurence and R. C. Moon (1866). But the most wonderful operation was performed by Mr. Dixon (see Dixon's Guide to Diseases of the Eye, page 382). In October 1847 a Cornish miner was severely wounded by an explosion of gunpowder at a copper mine in Cuba. He came under the care of Mr. Dixon in the May following. His forehead and cheeks were seamed with scars, and small fragments of stone might be felt here and there beneath the skin of the face, which was dotted with grains of exploded gunpowder. The left eyeball and eyelids had been totally destroyed; but on the right side, where the eyelids should have been, there was a strange appearance. Both lids were confounded together in one uniform cicatrix so firm and rigid that the aperture, or oddshaped window, diminished to a third of the natural size of an eye, never underwent the slightest change of form. 'It looked like a hole cut in a mask. The margin of this opening was smooth and rounded, and fringed with a few strag