It may be worth while to Observe, that a very great Distention may be made of the Parts of the Eye, without Spoiling the Sight; of which I lately saw an Instance in a Patient of that Ingenious and Experienced Oculist, Dr. Turbervill. This was a Gentlewoman about one or two and twenty years of Age, Whose Complexion and Features would have made her Handsom, if she had not had that sort of Eyes, which tho’ rarely met with, some call Ox-Eyes; for Hers were swell’d much beyond the size of Human Eyes, in so much, that she complain’d, they often frighted those that saw Her, and were indeed so Big, that she could not move them to the Right Hand or the Left, but was constrain’d to look strait forward; or if she would see an Object that lay Aside, she was oblig’d to turn her Whole Head that way. And so she answer’d me she was, when she set herself to Read in a Book, unless she did with her Hand move the Book from one side to another, to bring the ends of the Lines directly before her Eyes. She told me her Eyes did not always retain the same measure of Tumidness, and that the very day I saw them, they had been in the Morning much more Swell’d than when I look’d upon Her. But that which was more remarkable, was, that not only she could, for all this, See very well and distinctly, and, as I just now intimated, could Read Books, but her Sight had continued good, tho’ she had this Distemper these twelve years. And, which is more strange, she answer’d me, that her Visive Power was so little Prejudic’d by this Distemper, when it first came upon her, that she never knew any thing was amiss in her Eyes, till her Friends told her of it, when they found it had continued too long to be a meerly Casual and Transient Tumor. But, tho’ this odd Accident did not Impair her Sight, it occasion’d great Pains in her Eyes, for which she took Purging and other Medicines, with so little Success, that both she and her former Physicians, thought her case Desperate; there appearing no way of dislodging a Humour so long settled there. Upon which I propos’d Salivation, as the least unlikely way that remain’d, to Resolve and carry off the Peccant Humour. But this, tho’ much approv’d by her Dostor, the Modest Patient would by no means consent to.
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