Part 60

Short sight. In this case the iris is contracted, and the cornea, which in long sight is too much flattened, is too convex or polarised; therefore spectacles of an opposite character, and with concave glasses, become necessary. Mice are said to be short-sighted; hence the affection has been termed myopia or myopiasis, literally "mouse-sight."

Skew sight, or sight askew, is a condition of our vision only accurate when the object is placed obliquely, in consequence of some partial obfuscation of the cornea, frequently from slight scars, scarcely, if at all, observable. In this lateral vision the axis of the eye affected usually coincides with that of the sound eye. In squinting, on the contrary, the two axes do not coincide.

In false sight, imaginary objects float before the sight; or, at other times, objects assume imaginary forms and qualities. The latter species has been divided in cases where the objects that are supposed to be seen have no real existence, and in cases where actual objects have assumed qualities that do not appertain to them. The first are termed ocular phantasms or spectres; the latter, ocular transmutations or illusions. These spectres sometimes form dark spots, called by physicians muscae volitantes. In another species, a net-work seems to be spread before the eyes; hence called visus reticularis. In a third form sparks scintillate, and this appearance is experienced when the eye has been struck. The eye is also troubled with an imaginary sense of dazzling, constituting the myrmaryge of the Greek writers; at other times, an iridescent appearance, exhibiting the colours of the rainbow, is experienced, although sometimes this impression is confined to a single colour. Dr. Heberden relates the case of a lady of advanced age, lodging on the eastern coast of Kent, in a house that looked immediately upon the sea, and exposed to the glare of the morning sun. The curtains of her room were white, a circumstance which added to the intensity of the light. When she had been there about ten days, she observed one evening, at the time of sunset, that first the fringes of the clouds appeared red, and soon after the same colour was diffused over all the objects around her, especially if they were white. This lasted the whole night, but in the morning her sight was again perfect. This alternation of morbid and sound sight prevailed the whole time the lady resided on the coast, which was three weeks; and for nearly as long after she left it, at which time it ceased suddenly of its own accord.

There exists another variety of false sight, that Plenk has denominated metamorphopsia, and in which objects appear changed in their natural qualities, producing error of form, error of motion, error of number, and error of colour. I had a patient in Lisbon who fancied that all the horses he saw carried horns or extensive antlers. A young lady whom I attended beheld every one of a gigantic height. Dr. Priestley has given a curious case of error of colour in five brothers and two sisters, all adults. One of the brothers could form no idea whatever of colours, though he judged very accurately of the form and other qualities of objects; hence he thought stockings were sufficiently distinguished by the name of stockings, and could not conceive the necessity of calling them white or black. He could perceive cherries on a tree; but only distinguished them, even when red-ripe, from the surrounding leaves by their size and shape. One of the brothers appeared to have a faint sense of a few colours, but still a very imperfect notion; and, upon the whole, they did not seem to possess any other distinguishing power than that of light and shade, into which they resolved all the colours presented to them,--so that dove or straw colour were regarded as white; and green, crimson, and purple, as black or dark. On looking at a rainbow, one of them could distinguish that it consisted of stripes, but nothing more. Dr. Nicholl relates the case of a boy who confounded green with red; and called light red and pink, blue. His maternal grandfather and one uncle had the same imperfection. The latter was in the navy, and having a blue coat and waistcoat, purchased a pair of red breeches to match. The same physician knew a gentleman who could not distinguish green from red; a cucumber and a boiled lobster did not offer the least difference in colour. His brother and his niece laboured under a similar affection.

Some philosophers are of opinion, that in the power of conceiving colours there is a striking difference in individuals, and are inclined to think that in many instances the supposed defects of sight ought to be ascribed to a defect in the power of conception, arising probably from some early habit of inattention. This theory is scarcely tenable. The utmost inattention and indifference regarding surrounding objects could never lead to a delusive view of any colour; also, it is more than probable that, in the case of a child in whom such a defective vision was observed, his attention would be incessantly called on by those around him, to correct, if possible, so strange a delusion. Moreover, this defect of vision, as we have seen, appears in some instances to be hereditary; and to prevail in families.

Phrenologists of course are of opinion that the judgment of colours resides in a particular organ, remarkably full and prominent in painters distinguished by the perfection of their colouring. According to Gall, a local deficiency of brain is observable where the power of distinguishing colours is wanting.

The sense of vision exhibits more variety in the different classes of animals than any of the others. In man, and the greater number of quadrupeds, this organ is guarded by an upper and a lower lid, both of which in man are fringed with lashes. This is not the case in most quadrupeds. In the elephant, opossum, seal, cats, other mammalia, birds, and all fishes, we find a third eyelid, or nictitating membrane, as it is called, arising from the internal angle of the eye, capable of covering and protecting the eye from danger, either wholly or in part. In the dog this membrane is narrow; in oxen and horses it extends half over the eyeball. It is by means of this veil that eagles are capable of fixing their eyes on the noon-day sun. The largest eyes in proportion to the size of the animal are found in birds,--nearly the smallest in whales; but the most diminutive are those of the shrew and mole, the latter's not exceeding the size of a pin's head.

The situation of the organs of vision differs materially. In man and monkeys they are placed directly under the forehead; in some fishes, such as the turbot and flounder tribes, both eyes are placed in the same side of the head. In the snail they are situated on the horns; and in the spider, distributed over various points of the body, and in different arrangements.

Eyes, however, are not indispensable to become sensible of the presence of light. Several zoophytes, that do not possess the organs of vision, are perfectly alive to its influence. A distinct organ is not always indispensable for a distinct sense. It is probable that in those animals that appear to be endowed with particular senses, without displaying particular organs relating to them, the senses are diffused like that of touch, over the whole surface. This subject has been admirably commented on by Cuvier.

HELLEBORE.

From time immemorial this substance has been considered an efficacious remedy in mania. The Greeks pretended that the daughters of Proetus, smitten with insanity by Bacchus, were restored to reason by the shepherd Melampus, who gave them some milk drawn from goats that had eaten hellebore. It is supposed that the use of purgatives arose from this fabulous tradition, whence this plant was called melampodium.

The ancients described two varieties, the white and the black. The first, according to Theophrastus, was found on a part of Mount Oeta called Pyra, on which the body of Hercules was burnt. It is not certain whether they confounded our hellebore with our veratrum. Pinel supposes that the veratrum album was their hellebore, as it is not probable that the veratrum nigrum should have been thus confounded. Tournefort, in his travels in the Levant, fancied that he had discovered the root of the ancients in one that the Turks called zopteme, which answered in its character to the description recorded in older writers.

Howbeit, it was considered a powerful purgative and emetic, especially indicated in the treatment of mental affections. Celsus forbade its exhibition in summer and during the winter, or whenever febrile symptoms were prevalent. This precaution, however, applied to all purgative medicines; and to this day, in several parts of the continent, similar injunctions are usual; and even in France practitioners of the old school prepare a patient several days before any opening medicine is given,--a learned precaution, that has but too frequently rendered every medicine useless.

The exhibition of this drug was a matter of so much importance amongst the ancients, that it was specifically termed helleborism; and it was considered of so powerful a nature in mania, that the treatment of the malady was called navigare Anticyras, since it was near the town of Anticyras that the plant was generally gathered. If this process of helleborism proved efficacious, it is more than probable that its beneficial results proceeded from the violent evacuations that preceded it. The following was the mode adopted with the helleborised: The patient was first well fed for several days until the decline of the moon, when a powerful emetic was given to him; five days after a similar dose was prescribed, and then good living ordered for a month: at the expiration of this invigorating respite, emetics began again to work him every three days. After the last attack on his digestive head-quarters, he was bathed, fed again, and hellebore was given after he had been submitted to several hours' friction with olive oil. The emetics were invariably administered on a full stomach, which was cleared either by medicine or the excitement of the beard of a quill poked down the unfortunate patient's throat. At other times, (by way, no doubt, of variety,) rejection was excited by making the patient eat a pound or more of horseradish; after which he was walked about for some time; and then, after a short repose, the fingers or the quill were brought into action. After this operation he was lulled to sleep by a regular shampooing. It appears that, despite of all these practices, the stomachs of the ancients were sometimes so pertinaciously retentive, that more powerful means to relieve them were adopted; and when the longest feather that could be plucked from a goose proved unavailing, gloves dipped in the oil of cyprus were put on, and the fingers thus inuncted replaced the feathers. When this failed, the obstinate sufferer was made to swallow a quart or two of honey and hot water, in which rue had been infused; and when this proved ineffectual, he was slung in a hammock to produce the sensation of sea-sickness. In some cases it appears that, despite this practice, the patient thought proper to faint. On such occasions little wedges of wood were driven between his obstinate and rebellious teeth clenched against medicine, so as to allow the introduction of the goose-quill, while cephalic snuff of the precious hellebore and euphorbia was blown up his nostrils to produce sneezing. The last trial to relieve him was tossing the ill-fated wight in a blanket. After this experiment the patient was left to nature or to his friends, if he would not recover. These friends immediately proceeded to give him punches in the stomach, roll him about the floor, and endeavour to restore him to his senses by driving him out of them by every possible noise that could frighten him, if his frightful condition was at all susceptible of any thing left in the arsenal of medicinal ingenuity.

Small doses of hellebore seem to have been taken not only with impunity, but were supposed to assist the mental faculties. According to Valerius Maximus and Aulus Gellius, orators were in the practice of using this stimulus before their disputations. Such, it is said, was the habit of Carneades, whose doctrines might well have been applied to this very day to many theories, since he denied that any thing in the world could be perceived or understood.

Hellebore is to this day an ingredient in many of the fashionable pills vended by successful quacks. This introduction, at any rate, shows that their compounders have candour enough to think (although they may not acknowledge it) that the intellectual faculties of the purchasers of their nostrums do stand in need of some medicinal aid.

SYMPATHIES AND ANTIPATHIES.

The constant effects produced by causes which do not appear connected with them, are phenomena both of organic and inorganic nature which have long fixed the attention of philosophers, and have not yet been satisfactorily explained. This operation between distant bodies cannot be traced to any medium of communication. It arises from an attractive and a repulsive power that cannot be defined. Almost every substance evinces inclinations or antipathies; is attracted with more or less strength by one body, indifferent towards a second, and constantly avoiding a third; nay, bodies appear to act where they are not present, and where no communication can exist. We are as ignorant of the nature of these phenomena as of those of gravitation, magnetism, and electricity. Still, although this medium of communication is not evident, it must be admitted by inference that there must exist a connecting channel, although its nature be unknown.

The ancients called sympathy consensus, and the moderns have also defined it a consent of parts; nor is this definition incorrect, since sympathy arises from the relative ties that mysteriously unite our several organs, however distant and unconnected they may appear; thus establishing a beauteous harmony between all the functions of the animal economy. Sympathies must therefore constitute the chief study of the physiologist: on this alone can the physician ground his investigation of the various disorders to which flesh is heir. Symptoms arise from sympathies: without a knowledge of the one we can never attain a clear insight in the other.

Sympathies are of a physical or a moral nature. The first consist, as I have already stated, of a consent between the different parts of the organism; the latter of certain impressions, unaccountable, unconquerable, that harmonize in a multiplicity of phenomena various individuals, or that induce them, without their being able to assign any reason or motive to warrant the repugnance, to avoid each other, and not unfrequently to entertain a feeling of disgust or horror. A secret voice has spoken,--organism instinctively obeys. Moral sympathies have been defined as faculties that enabled us to partake of the ideas, the affections, or the dislike of others; although this sentiment is by no means reciprocal, and we often dislike those who fondly love us. So far sympathy is instinctive; yet, like many instincts, it is more or less under the control of our reason. We often acquire an artificial partiality to substances that we naturally disliked. Our senses may be considered the instruments of our sympathies; yet senses are regulated by education and habit. Oil, olives, tobacco, and various other substances, are naturally, one might say instinctively, unpleasant to most individuals; yet by custom they are not only relished, but ardently wished for when they cannot be obtained. It is the same with our relative partiality or aversion towards individuals; and indifference is often turned into affection, while the most ardent love is not far remote from hate, when vanity more especially, removes its boundaries.

If we admit that our sympathies are lodged in certain specific organs, we must consider that we are the slaves of organism; whereas it is pretty positive that to a certain extent we are the slaves of habit. Even the most ardent and prevailing passions, the indulgence in which has become an absolute necessity, cease to be brought into action when they have long remained dormant. To associate our moral sympathies with physical consents of parts is to level man with the brute creation; although we hourly see the most decided instinctive dislikes in animals overcome by education. A mouse may be brought up with a cat, and a hawk with a sparrow; although a chicken has been known to dart at a fly the moment its head was out of the egg.

Nor can we view in the same light the affinities of inorganic bodies. They are subject to chemical laws; each is endowed with specific qualities that seldom or never vary, and some other body must be interposed to check their attraction; and that body, in the relation of inorganic matter, may be compared to the influence of the mind in intellectual beings. In animals, the very laws of nature are not unfrequently unheeded; and in these instances natural instincts appear less powerful than the mechanical discrimination that we witness in vegetable life, where germs, and molecules, and fibrils not only select each other, according to nature's harmonic institutions, but actually attract each other from distant situations. This attractive power is beautifully illustrated in the mysterious vegetation of the vallisneria spiralis, an aquatic plant, in which the male and female are distinct individuals. The organization of the male qualifies it to adapt itself to the surface of the water, from the bottom of which the plant shoots forth, and to float in the middle of the deep and rapid tide. The female, on the contrary, is only found in shallow waters, or on shores where the tide exerts but little influence. Thus differently formed and situated, how does their union take place? It is a wonderful mystery. As soon as the male flower is perfect, the spinal stem dries away, and the flower thus separated sails away towards the shore in pursuit of the female, for the most part driven by a current of wind or the stream; yet as soon as it arrives near its destination it obeys a new influence, and is attracted towards the object of its pursuit, despite the powers of that wind and tide which until then directed it. No hypothesis, however ingenious, can explain this phenomenon.

Notwithstanding the doctrines of various writers, I am of opinion that our passions are clearly instinctive, but fortunately more or less under the control of our mental faculties in well-regulated individuals, who do not yield to these instinctive feelings an unbridled course; and I doubt much if there does exist a single passion, however inordinate it may appear, that cannot be mastered. Both good and evil qualities are frequently artificial, and arise from peculiar moral and physical conditions. Self-preservation is an instinctive feeling; yet man will wantonly risk his existence from false views regarding his social position. Courage has been considered as differing in its quality (if I may use the term), and arises sometimes from a natural animal or brute propensity, at others from calculation and reflection; and the latter most unquestionably may temper the former. Duclos' distinction between what is called the courageous heart and the courageous mind, is by no means as objectionable as some of his opponents maintain. If courage is an instinctive faculty, residing in a certain organ, how comes it that this organism varies at different periods? How comes it, moreover, that this variety depends upon circumstances? I have seen a desperate duellist disgrace himself by a cowardly flight in the field of battle. I have known an arrant poltroon defend himself desperately against robbers; and a man, considered of undoubted courage, surrender his arms to a single footpad. In our instincts, our sympathies, we are to a certain extent the children of circumstances; and it would be as absurd to maintain that we cannot control our moral sympathies, as to excuse the commission of murder or of theft.

Our physical sympathies are of a nature totally different. Here they are brought into action according to certain laws of the organization, as uncontrollable as chemical affinities; and I doubt much whether our unaccountable antipathies may not be considered as appertaining to this category: they seem to depend upon certain laws of attraction and repulsion. The channel of this communication, as I have already observed, will perhaps remain for ever in utter obscurity. To this day we know not in what manner certain articles of food and medical substances find a path to the kidneys with such a rapidity as to render it improbable that it was through the medium of the circulation. The nature of other physiological phenomena is equally unexplained. Through what channel of communication does the cat-hater know that one of these animals is in the room, although unseen by him? Yet these antipathies might be conquered. A man was wont to fall into fits at the sight of a spider; a waxen one was made, which equally terrified him. When he had recovered his faculties, his error was pointed out, the wax figure was put into his hand without inspiring dread, and shortly the living insect no longer disturbed him.

Certain antipathies appear to depend upon a peculiarity of the senses. The horror inspired by the odour of certain flowers may be referred to this cause. Amatus Lusitanus relates the case of a monk who fainted when he beheld a rose, and never quitted his cell when that flower was blooming. Scaliger mentions one of his relations who experienced a similar horror when seeing a lily. In these instances it is not the agreeableness or the offensive nature of the aroma that inspires the repugnance; and Montaigne remarked on this subject, that there were men who dreaded an apple more than a musket-ball. Zimmerman tells us of a lady who could not endure the feeling of silk and satin, and shuddered when touching the velvety skin of a peach. Boyle records the case of a man who felt a natural abhorrence to honey. Without his knowledge, some honey was introduced in a plaster applied to his foot, and the accidents that resulted compelled his attendants to withdraw it. A young man was known to faint whenever he heard the servant sweeping. Hippocrates mentions one Nicanor who swooned whenever he heard a flute: our Shakspeare has alluded to the effects of the bagpipe. Julia, daughter of Frederick, king of Naples, could not taste meat without serious accidents. Boyle fainted when he heard the splashing of water; Scaliger turned pale at the sight of water-cresses; Erasmus experienced febrile symptoms when smelling fish; the Duke d'Epernon swooned on beholding a leveret, although a hare did not produce the same effect. Tycho Brahe fainted at the sight of a fox, Henry the Third of France at that of a cat, and Marshal d'Albert at a pig. The horror that whole families entertain of cheese is generally known. Many individuals cannot digest, or even retain certain substances, such as rice, wine, various fruits, and vegetables.

There are also antipathies that border upon mental aberration. Such was the case with a clergyman who fainted whenever a certain verse in Jeremiah was read. I lately dined in company with a gentleman who was seized with symptoms of syncope whenever a surgical operation or an accident was spoken of. St. John Long's name happened to be mentioned, and he was carried out of the room. I have also known a person who experienced an alarming vertigo and dizziness whenever a great height or a dizzy precipice was described. A similar accident has been occasioned by Edgar's description of Dover Cliff in King Lear. All these sympathies may be looked upon as morbid affections, or rather peculiar idiosyncrasies, beyond the control of our reason or our volition, although it is not impossible that they might be gradually checked by habit. Our dislikes to individuals are often as unaccountable, when we are obliged to confess with the poet Martial:

Non amo te, Sabidi, nec possum dicere quare; Hoc tantum possum dicere, Non amo te.

It is the same with our affections. The ancients, amongst others Empedocles, fancied that attraction and repulsion constituted the principal actions of life, and harmonized the universe. Hesiod dispels Chaos through the agency of Love. Aversions were attributed to the influence of an evil eye. To avoid its direful effects, strange practices were adopted, according to Tibullus; and to check the malefices of wicked crones, it was customary to spit three times in an infant's bosom,