Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds / by John Bell.

  • John Bell
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Discourses on the nature and cure of wounds / by John Bell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of particular medicines by which they could reftore the eye, after it had been burfl or cut open : and Tay- lor, Woolhoufe, and others, pretended to cure the blindnefs of old age, by extracting the muddy humours of the eye, and replacing them with frelh tranfparent humours, by which the fight became as clear and fine, as in the youngeft perfon *. ■* Kirkringius tells his (lory in the following lamentable terms: That the King of Denmark who was as fkilfnl in faiences, as clear in govern- ing his realms, one day when he was reading a curious book upon glafs-making, written by Andreas Frifius, afked his Phyfician, Burhi- us, who was (landing by, whether this (lory that the author told in his preface could be true, about cutting the eye open, and letting but the humours, and relloring it again ? “ O !” fays Burhius, “ T hat Theo- “ dorus Kirkringius, mentioned there fo honourably, is one of the “ poorelt of my fcholars in this art.” Kirkringius in revenge tells the whole (lory ; how he had heard of Burhius being poffefled of this art; how he had wifhed to afk the fecret; and how he was afhamed to pro- pofe buying it with money from a gentleman like Burhius ; how he (ludied and laboured to find it out; and how he fucceeded without any obligation to this fame Burhius. “ Hoc fcio, et hie profiteer « me nullo horum modorum oculos reftituere ; rellituere tamen alia “ prorfus ratione, aliifcjue a me folo inventis viis addo ; nec facere me “ diftindlionem inter albos et nigros, fed quolibet oblato animali,” See. “ It matters nothing to me whether the eyes be black, brown, or gre), « bring me what animal you pleafe, I (hall cut the eyes open, fqueeze “ out all the humors, give him back to you as blind as a mole, and yet “ reftore his eyefight in a very little while : 1 have done it often for “ fun, and have done it three times on the fame dog.” Now, this was what Burhius could not do according to Kirkringius ; for Kirk- ringius tells how he was admitted to one of Burhius’s exhibitions which failed, and the dog goes to this day in the ftreets of Amfter- dam blind of that eye. “ Qui canis adbuc hie Amftelodami vivit qui- “ dem, fed non viditillo qui difeiffus fuit oculo.”