“W. CONYBEARE, about thirty-six years old, had had, for six years past, his eyes so dimmed, without any apparent blemish in them, that he saw all objects as it were through a thick cloud. He had been successively in the three most celebrated hospitals in London, St. Thomas’s, St. Bartholomew’s, and St. George’s; at length, about two years ago, he came to ours. In all the others, after other remedies, it had been tried whether a mercurial salivation might not cure this kind of _gutta serena_. The physicians were tired out, and the patient quite discouraged. On my interrogating him very particularly, and very carefully, upon his illness, he told me, that, from time to time, he felt a pain all along the spine of his back, especially when he stooped to take up any thing; that his legs were so weak, that he could scarce stand a minute upright, without leaning, which if he did not, his legs would tremble, and he had then a vertigo and dizziness; that his memory was so weakened, that he sometimes appeared stupid; and I could myself observe, that he was greatly emaciated. All this made me suspect, that his _gutta serena_ might be no other than the symptom of a more dreadful disorder, and that the patient was attacked with a real _tabes dorsalis_. “I pathetically urged him to own to me, whether he had not polluted himself with the abominable crime of ONAN, which intirely destroys the balsamic parts of the nervous fluid. After much hesitation, and blushing, he confessed it. I ordered him to take, over night, two mercurial pills, containing six grains each, of _mercurius dulcis_, and the next day an ounce of purgative salts, and to repeat that four times in the space of fifteen days. On the expiration of that term, I made him, according to the prescription of HIPPOCRATES, live forty days intirely upon a milk-diet, during which time he used to have himself, two or three times a week, rubbed, as he went to bed. At the end of this method of treatment, he returned from the country, in a much better condition than he had gone thither. I advised him, afterwards the cold-bath for three weeks. For two months together he took, twice a day, the mineral electuary and volatile julep, to which he joined frictions, and the bathing his feet. These remedies so far restored his health, that he wanted to resume the exercise of his trade, which was that of a baker; but I advised him to betake himself to some other business, being afraid that his inhaling the flower, that rises in the kneading, might form in his as yet weak stomach and breast, a paste, of which the effects might be dangerous.” M. STEHELIN gave some relief to the youth mentioned towards the end of the second Section, by strengthening baths, by _Tinct. Mart. Ludovic._ and by aperitive broths.