who
had been, as he informed me, twelve months under the hands of a
celebrated oculist, was recommended by the latter, as a last
resource, to try galvanism. He had received no benefit whatever
whilst under the direction of the oculist above alluded to, but his
intestines were intolerably deranged by the effects of the mercury
336 which he had taken. This gentleman galvanised his eyes, and the
man, who is a gunsmith, told me, that when he first went to have
the operation performed, he could not see the red border round the
hearth-rug in the front parlour, but when he returned into that
room, after having been galvanised, he assured me he saw it
plainly. He moreover declared that his bowels had been, and then
were, in a very deranged state, from the effects of the mercury
which he had taken, but that he felt incredible relief after having
been galvanised, and that, two or three days afterwards, they were
quite restored to health and strength. Being thus satisfied with
the influence that so wonderfully exists between the intestines and
the eyes, I am now making arrangements with the same gentleman, to
administer the remedy for the benefit, _as we hope_, of patients
afflicted with _gutta serena_. But I now declare to the public a
third time, that the remedy is simple, safe, and effectual, and
that I am ready and desirous of administering it to any one who may
choose to apply for it, who is afflicted with the disorder, with my
positive assurances, that it will effect a cure in eight-and-forty
hours at the utmost, but probably in twenty-four.

_Vaccination._

Intelligence received from West Barbary was instrumental in
337 promoting the adoption of vaccination. In the latter years of the
last century, the small-pox pervaded West and South Barbary. Mr.
Matra, the British consul-general to the Empire of Marocco, wrote
to me at that period officially, to procure him every information
possible, and to inform him if I could discover if cattle in this
country were subject to the small-pox. I made every inquiry without
delay, and I reported to His Excellency, (who was ambassador as
well as consul), that I had ascertained that the horses, mules,
asses, and oxen were subject in this country to the small-pox, of
which there could be no doubt, as the name given to th