enerally esteemed a palsy of the nerve, but should
rather be deemed the death of it, as paralysis has generally been applied
to a deprivation only of voluntary power. This is a disease of dark eyes
only, as the cataract is a disease of light eyes only. At the commencement
of this disease, very minute electric shocks should be repeatedly passed
through the eyes; such as may be produced by putting one edge of a piece of
silver the size of a half-crown piece beneath the tongue, and one edge of a
piece of zinc of a similar size between the upper lip and the gum, and then
repeatedly bringing their exterior edges into contact, by which means very
small electric sparks become visible in the eyes. See additional note at
the end of the first volume, p. 567. and Sect. XIV. 5.

M. M. Minute electric shocks. A grain of opium, and a quarter of a grain of
corrosive sublimate of mercury, twice a day for four or six weeks. Blister
on the crown of the head.

6. _Auditus imminutus._ Diminished hearing. Deafness is a frequent symptom
in those inflammatory or sensitive fevers with debility, which are
generally called putrid; it attends the general stupor in those fevers, and
is rather esteemed a salutary sign, as during this stupor there is less
expenditure of sensorial power.

In fevers of debility without inflammation, called nervous fevers, I
suspect deafness to be a bad symptom, arising like the dilated pupil from a
partial paralysis of the nerve of sense. See Class IV. 2. 1. 15.

Nervous fevers are supposed by Dr. Gilchrist to originate from a congestion
of serum or water in some part of the brain, as many of the symptoms are so
similar to those of hydrocephalus internus, in which a fluid is accumulated
in the ventricules of the brain; on this idea the inactivity of the optic
or auditory nerves in these fevers may arise from the compression of the
effused fluid; while the torpor attending putrid fever may depend on the
meninges of the brain being thickened by inflammation, and thus compressing
it; now the new vessels, or the blood, which thickens inflamed parts, is
more frequently reabsorbed, than the effused fluid from a cavity; and hence
the stupor in one case is less dangerous than in the other.

In inflammatory or sensitive fevers with debility, deafness may sometimes
arise from a greater secretion and absorption of the ear-wax, which is very
similar to the bile, and is liable to fill the meatus auditorius, when it
is too visci