IN a letter I received from my brother, the lieutenant governor of
Virginia, he gives an account of a very remarkable storm of hail;
which, if you think it worth communicating to the Society, is very much
at their service.
It happened on Sunday the 9th of July, about four o’clock in the
afternoon, and was preceded by some thunder and lightning. It was a
small cloud, that did not seem to threaten much before its breaking,
and did not extend a full mile in breadth. It passed over the middle of
the town of Williamsburgh, and the skirts of the town had but little of
it. Its course was from N. by W. to S. by E. The hail-stones, or rather
pieces of ice, were most of them of an oblong square form; many of them
an inch and half long, and about three fourths of an inch wide and
deep; and from one side of most of them there proceeded sharp spikes,
protuberant at least half an inch. He says he cooled his wine, and
froze cream, with some of them the next day; and they were not totally
dissolved when he went to bed on Monday night. This storm broke every
pane of glass on the north side his house, and destroyed all his garden
things intirely.
He mentions likewise the heats to have been rather more than usual in
that country this summer; and particularly on the 9th of August his
thermometer (which is hung on the outside of his house on the north
aspect) was at 97, by Fahrenheit’s graduation, and some other days as
high as 94 or 95. I am,
SIR,
Your most obedient humble Servant,
Wm. Fauquier.
Jermyn street, 18 October, 1758.
CI. _An Account of an extraordinary Case of a diseased Eye; In a Letter
to_ Matthew Maty, _M. D. F.R.S. By_ Daniel Peter Layard, _M. D. F.R.S._
[Read Nov. 9. 1758.]
Huntingdon, 20th May, 1758.
Dear Sir,
IN October 1755. I communicated to you, and you inserted in the last
volume of your _Journal Britannique_, the case of Susannah Earle, of
Hemmingford-Grey in this County, who, in consequence of the whooping
cough, was afflicted with a protruded eye. The case I now send you,
somewhat similar to that young girl’s in its first appearance and
progress, but by accident attended with a second disease, will perhaps
deserve your attention, and not seem unworthy of being presented to
the Royal Society.
John Law, of Fenny-Stanton, also in the County of Huntingdon, a strong
and robust lad, thirteen years and six months old, in Easter week
1756, beating dung about a close with unusual force, on a sudden felt
a violent pain in his left eye. The pain increased, an inflammation
ensued, and the eye grew daily larger. The poor boy’s mother followed
the directions, which she received, without the least benefit to her
child, after having, besides other expences, been defrauded by a quack
of two guineas; a great sum for a poor cottager!
The widow Law, in her distress, heard of Susannah Earl’s cure. She
went to see her; and determined to bring her son to Huntingdon, for
Mr. Hopkins’s assistance. Accordingly, October the 7th 1756, she came
to Mr. Daniel Hopkins, surgeon, in this town; and having desired my
opinion, we both examined the eye together.
The left eye was protruded out of its orbit, and hung down over the
cheek to the upper lip. The coats were greatly discoloured, all the
vessels turgid, the sight totally lost, and the humours appeared like
fluctuating pus. We saw the necessity of an immediate extirpation, to
save the right eye, already greatly inflamed; and having apprized the
mother and boy of the state the eye was in, a consultation was desired
with two surgeons of St. Ives. Mr. Dawkes, who was present with Mr.
Skeeles at Susannah Earle’s operation, being dead since that time, Mr.
Thomas Skeeles and Mr. Thomas Want very charitably met Mr. Hopkins and
me the next day, October the 8th, at the widow Law’s cottage.
The eye appeared to these gentlemen as I have related: and upon Mr.
Want’s pressing with his finger on the pupil, the globe burst at the
edge of the _Iris_, and discharged pus. The extirpation of the eye was
unanimously agreed upon, and immediately performed.
Mr. Hopkins made a puncture with a lancet close to the external and
small canthus of the eye, and then with a pair of crooked scissars took
off all the distended globe close to the eye-lids. He then cleaned the
cavity of the purulent humours, and filled it with soft lint, over
which he applied bolsters dipped in warm red wine and water, and the
_monoculus_ bandage to keep on the whole dressings. The lad was bled
in the arm; nitrous medicines, and anodynes, were prescribed, and a
suitable regimen. The fever, and inflammation of the eye, gradually
decreased; the suppuration of the wound in few days was good, the
distended eye-lids contracted, and a cure was soon expected.
But on November the 7th the lad went to open the street-door, and
it being a cold and rainy evening, he quickly felt the bad effects
of the cold wind, which drove the rain in upon him. That night the
wound became again very painful, the eye-lids puffed up, and next
day appeared much inflamed, as were all the contents of the orbit.
Fungous excrescences soon followed, and an intermittent fever. An
emetic being improper, he was purged with rhubarb, and afterwards took
the bark infused in red wine. The fever was removed after some time;
but the contents of the orbit continued increasing, and the fungous
excrescences became so large and spongy, as to be of equal bulk with
the diseased eye before extirpation. All topical applications, to
contract this fungus, were ineffectual, and the application of caustics
or escharotics was prudently avoided, lest they should produce a
carcinomatous ulcer. The discharge was chiefly a purulent serum: on
which account, ever since the beginning of November he was kept upon a
dry diet.
In February 1757. the remaining coats of the eye began to appear at
the most prominent parts of the excrescence, and seemed white like a
part of the _conjunctiva_. On touching it with the finger, a distinct
fluctuation was felt, and an _hydrophthalmia_ perfectly discovered; but
neither the thickness of the coats, nor the sensibility of the parts,
would permit a puncture to be made, till the cyst, which appeared
formed by the distension of one of the coats of the eye, was freer from
the fungus.
The cyst continued daily to extend itself, and to separate the fungous
edges; the fluctuation became more manifest, and the membranes thinner.
At length, on the 15th of June 1757, Mr. Hopkins opened the cyst
with the point of a lancet, and let out a large cup-full of limpid
serum, without smell or taste. The boy felt very little pain in this
operation. The cavity was filled with dry lint, and compresses dipt in
warm red wine and water were applied over it. All the night following,
and several days after, a great discharge of serum came away. On the
19th the fungus was considerably lessened. Mr. Hopkins then dressed
the wound with warm _unguentum é gummi elemi_, and washed the fungus
with a lotion of _aquarum calcis_, _rosarum_, _et tincturæ myrrhæ_.
On the 23d, upon his removing the dressings, he saw the cyst loose
and collapsed; which he extracted with his forceps, without the least
difficulty, or pain to his patient. The fungus daily wasted afterwards,
the wound digested well, and the lad was intirely cured on the 7th of
August.
His right eye is perfectly strong, and he has been free from complaint
ever since. The remainder of the coats of the eye, and of the muscles,
bear up the eye-lids, that when uncovered he only seems to have closed
the left eye: however, he has wore all the winter a back patch over it,
to guard against fresh cold.
The cyst, when first taken away, measured three inches and half in
length, one inch and half in diameter, and contained a large cup-full
of water. It appeared to be the _tunica sclerotica_, was of a clear
pellucid white, and of so delicate a texture, as scarce to admit of
being touched without tearing; and when dried with all possible care,
became so brittle, that Mr. Hopkins could hardly preserve it in the
manner I now send it.