astringent eyewash.

NERVOUS DISORDERS.

SPASM OF EYELIDS may be owing to constitutional susceptibility, or to
the presence of local irritants (insects, chemical irritants, sand,
etc.) in the eye, to wounds or inflammation of the mucous membrane, or
to disease of the brain. When due to local irritation it may be
temporarily overcome by instilling a few drops of a 4 per cent solution
of cocaine into the eye, when the true cause may be ascertained and
removed. The nervous or constitutional disease must be treated according
to its nature.

DROOPING EYELIDS, OR PTOSIS.--This is usually present in the upper lid,
or is at least little noticed in the lower. It is sometimes but a
symptom of paralysis of one-half of the face, in which case the ear,
lips, and nostrils on the same side will be found soft, drooping, and
inactive, and even the half of the tongue may partake of the palsy. If
the same condition exists on both sides, there is difficult, snuffling
breathing, from the air drawing in the flaps of the nostrils in
inspiration, and all feed is taken in by the teeth, as the lips are
useless. In both there is a free discharge of saliva from the mouth
during mastication. This paralysis is a frequent result of injury, by a
poke, to the seventh nerve, as it passes over the back of the lower jaw.
In some cases the paralysis is confined to the lid, the injury having
been sustained by the muscles which raise it, or by the supraorbital
nerve, which emerges from the bone just above the eye. Such injury to
the nerve may have resulted from fracture of the orbital process of the
frontal bone above the eyeball.

The condition may, however, be due to spasm of the sphincter muscle,
which closes the lids, or to inflammation of the upper lid, usually a
result of blows on the orbit. In the latter case it may run a slow
course with chronic thickening of the lid.

The paralysis due to the poke may be often remedied, first, by the
removal of any remaining inflammation by a wet sponge worn beneath the
ear and kept in place by a bandage; secondly, when all inflammation has
passed, by a blister on the same region, or by rubbing it daily with a
mixture of olive oil and strong aqua ammonia in equal proportions.
Improvement is usually slow, and it may be months before complete
recovery ensues.

In paralysis from blows above the eyes the same treatment may be applied
to that part.

Thickening of the lid may be treated by painting with tinctu