s, and whose
prosperity I had promoted at Santa Cruz, by facilitating his
commercial adventures, communicated to me a simple remedy for this
disorder; I put no faith in it, for it was so simple that I was
disposed to think it an illusion. He called on me, however,
repeatedly, and finding I had not applied it, he brought it one
morning himself, and urged me to try it, I did so; and that same
evening the eyes of the youth were almost well, and his sight was
333 completely restored the following night. This ophthalmic affection,
in an Arabic translation of Hippocrates, is called _Butelleese;_
another translation of ancient date calls it _Shebkeret:_ the name,
however, by which it is known at the present day in Africa, is
_Butelleese:_ the Latins called it _Lusciosus_, which word denotes
precisely the disease, viz. one who sees imperfectly in the morning
and evening twilight, but whose vision is clear at broad day-light.
_Lusciosus ad lucernam non videt. Vesperi non videre quos lusciosos
appellant_. Plaut. Mil. Gl. ii. 3.

This ophthalmia has been by some denominated _hen-blindness_, from
the circumstance of hens' eyes being thus affected, when they are
unable to see to pick up small grains in the dusk of the evening. I
have frequently seen fowls thus affected soon after going to sea,
from the coast of Africa, after which they decline and grow sick. A
quantity of small gravel should be spread in their coops at sea,
which prevents this disorder, and will sometimes cure it. At the
commencement of this complaint, the circumstance that first engages
the patient's attention is the dimness of his eye-sight at
twilight: the nocturnal dimness of vision was such, in the instance
before-mentioned, that the youth could scarcely see, even with a
candle in his hand, which he described, as seen by him, as if it
were misty, or as glimmering in a thick fog. There was no external
disfiguration visible in the eyes, but they appeared as usual.
334
What the cause of this disorder was I am unable to say; but I have
often suspected that it was contracted from the shining of the sun
on the white terras of the house where my cousin used to go of a
morning to shoot _tibeebs_, a bird somewhat resembling the European
sparrow. This youth was rather of a weak or delicate constitution.