Eyesight, and how to care for it / edited by George Black.

Date:
[1888]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eyesight, and how to care for it / edited by George Black. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    tims sadden the journey of sympathetic travellers. Its causes are exposure to intense heat and glare, the high winds driving clouds of sand before them, and the poverty and ignorance of a large portion of the inhabitants. Many soldiers of the Crusades were victims of this disease, and numbers of blind beggars groped about the streets of London and Paris, appealing to the sympathies of the passers-by with the cry of Holy Land ! Holy Land ! to show that they had lost their sight in the popular cause. Three hun- dred of these persons were cared for in an asylum established in Paris by Louis IX., which, from the number of its inmates, was called Les Quinze Vingts. It is still in existence, with the same name, and is the oldest institution for the blind in the world. Purulent ophthalmia is one of the most dangerous diseases to which the eye is subject, and its victims are the most numerous in asylums for the blind. Fortunately, in a large proportion of cases, it yields to proper treatment, particularly the form occurring in infants, which is nearly always curable in its earli- est stages; but no time should be lost, as, in a bad ■ case, a few hours sometimes decide the patient's fate. The most scrupulous cleanliness is always essential, and the greatest care must be taken that no towel or basin that the patient uses shall be used by any one else. When the disease appears in a building where