Note ii — BOOK IV.
Reading edition
Among all the other Security the Eye hath, we may reckon the Reparation of the aqueous Humour; by which Means the Eye when wounded, and that in all Appearance very dangerously too, doth often recover its Sight: Of which Bern. Verzascha gives divers Examples ancient and modern. One is from Galen, of a Boy so wounded, that the Cornea fell, and became flaccid, but yet recovered his Sight. Other such like Instances also he gives from Realdus Columbus, Rhodius, and Tulpius; and one that he cured himself in these Words, Ego in Nobilissimi viri filiolâ similem casum observavi: hæc dum levibus de causis cum fratre altercaret, iste iracundiâ percitus cultellum Scriptorium apprehendit, & sororis oculo vulnus infligit, inde humor aqueus effluxit. Vocatus præsentem Chirurgum jussi sequens collyrium anodynum & exsiccans tepidè sæpiùs admovere. ℞ aq. Plantag. ℥iv. Rosar. Sanicul. Euphras. ana Trochisc. alb. Rhaf. cum Opio ℈ii. Tutiæ pp. ℈i. Croci orient. ℈ss. M. Hoc Collyrium inflammationem compescuit, vulnus siccavit & sanavit. Hinc post aliquot menses Humor aqueus succrevit. Nam visus, sed dibilior, cum summo parentum gaudio redivit. B. Verzaschæ Observ. Medicæ. Obs. 14.
Another Cure of this kind, was experimented by Dr. Daniel Major, upon a Goose, Ann. 1670, the aqueous Humour of both whose Eyes they let out, so that the Eyes fell, and the Goose became quite blind: But without the Use of any Medicine, in about two Days Time, Nature repaired the watery Humour again, the Eyes returned to their Former Turgency, and the Goose was in a Week after produced seeing before twenty eight or thirty Spectators. Ephem. Germ. T. 1. Add. ad. Obs. 117.
From the same Cause, I doubt not, it was that the Eye of a Gentleman’s Daughter, and those of a Cock, when wounded, so that the Cornea sunk, were restored by a Lithuanian Chymist, that passed for a Conjurer, by the Use of a Liquor found in May, in the Vesiculæ of Elm. Of which see Mr. Ray’s Catal. Cantab. in Ulmus from Henr. ab Heers.