established,* and patronised by the KING, the QUEEN, and the ROYAL FAMILY, as well as by nearly all the principal Nobility, Men of Science, and Professional Characters, and having given advice and assistance to upwards of 15,000 persons, the greater number of whom have been cured or relieved, by a mode of treatment which has not only been successfully employed in this country, but also in France, Germany, and America; while Otorrhœa, and Deafness and Dumbness, diseases of the most formidable description, have been more thoroughly investigated, and many cases of a nature hitherto deemed hopeless radically cured; I have now leisure to turn my attention to what I have for some time contem

* The Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear was instituted in 1816, under the patronage of his Majesty George the Fourth, the Dukes of York, Kent, and Cumberland, and, among the distinguished members of the medical profession, Sir Walter Farquhar, Dr. Baillie, Dr. Sims, Mr. Cline, Dr. Babington, Sir Astley Cooper, Mr. Leese, &c.

At a late meeting of the Governors, it was resolved, in order to extend its sphere of usefulness, to enlarge the present building, to enable it to receive within it walls not only deaf and dumb patients, but also persons from the country afflicted with deafness or other diseases of the ear, destitute of a habitation in the metropolis.

plated, viz. Diseases of the Eye-an organ of exquisite sensibility, and of wonderfully beautiful construction.

Many discoveries are made by chance, others by observation; and the one I have now the satisfaction of communicating to the profession is of great importance to a large class of sufferers. While treating cases of deafness, in which the patient's sight happened also to be affected, I have often been agreeably surprised to find, that while removing the deafness by constitutional treatment, the healthy action of the nerves of the ear has extended its influence to the eye, which has in this way, in numerous instances, been restored to the exercise of its functions. This undesigned coincidence was too striking, and likely to be too important in its results, for me to overlook: I accordingly directed my attention in a more particular manner to the subject, and being convinced, by my subsequent practice, that I had not been mistaken in my estimate of the causes to which I had attributed the consentaneous cure of two maladies by one line of treatment, I determined to publish my views on a topic so interesting to humanity.

From many years' attentive observation, I

am persuaded that the diseases of both the eye and the ear may be cured by the very same remedies; and if remedial means be had recourse to in their incipient stages, beneficial results will in most instances follow on the contrary, much misery is entailed by neglect of the premonitory symptoms of the maladies of both these organs.

It is the too common practice, in some affections of the eye, to consign the unhappy sufferer to the hands of an operator, before any attempt has been made to relieve him by milder means; a system which, in my opinion, should never be adopted, except under the most favourable circumstances as regards the age, general health, seat of disease, and constitution and habits of the patient.*

And here I have a few words to say on the present ineffectual mode of treating diseases of the eye; a singular fact, when we consider the recent progress in the cure of other diseases, and recollect the distinguished men who have made the eye the chief object of their study.

The principal thing I have to object to, is

* I am led to draw these conclusions from the fact of so small a number of persons recovering their sight by means of operations.

the copious general bloodletting, both from the temporal artery and the neighbourhood of the organ; which I have often known to aggravate, instead of alleviate, the disease.

I also strongly object to large doses of calomel; to the injudicious use of belladonna; to the slovenly manner in which external applications are often made to the eye; and to the performance of operations in cases which, from the nature of the disease, and the condition of the patient's health, present little prospect of success.

Some practitioners are, moreover, too fond of applying blisters and leeches to the temples. When we consider that the fifth pair of nerves gives off branches to the eye, we may well conceive how much preferable it would be to employ these remedies behind the ears.

On this interesting subject, I ought not to omit observing, that in no hospital in Europe have diseases of the eye been more skilfully treated than at His Majesty's Royal Hospital at Haslar, where I was employed as a medical officer for nearly six years during the late war; and no where were the remedies more mild and efficacious, or the practice more successful, and that in general without the use of

the knife.* Happily the history and mode of treatment of every individual case during the period alluded to are on record, highly to the credit of the commissioners and the medical authorities.

Although, for the reasons already stated, I intend henceforth to devote more of my attention to the cure of diseases of the eye, yet I trust that my long and persevering study of the ear and treatment of its maladies will shield me from the charge of vacillation of purpose. It forms no part of my plan to abandon the cure of diseases of the ear (which, the more I see of them, the more I am convinced admit of relief), but merely, owing to the increased facilities I now possess in the valuable assistance of my pupils, to combine in one practice the treatment of both organs. And whoever considers the nature of the eye and ear, and the

* The Royal Hospital at Haslar is one of the most extensive and commodious in Europe, at one time containing 2000 patients; its regulations are all excellent; and, as I have above remarked, its medical officers able and skilful men-a fact none will be inclined to call in question, when such names as Drs. Lynd, Hope, Maginnis, Babington of the City, Sir James Macgregor, Sir R. Hunter, Johnson, Weatherhead, Thomson, Clarke, Messrs. O'Reilly, Vance, Macintyre, Thompson, &c. &c. are mentioned as having served there.