June 18. Sunday.
The people brought me a peasant's daughter, a year and half old, who was deprived of sight, requesting me to say whether her complaint was a cataract. Finding the eyes well formed, without any unusual appearance, and quite free from
specks or clouds, I was rather inclined to say the child had a gutta serena, but was soon convinced that this could not be the case, as she evidently enjoyed being in the light near the window. But at the same time I remarked curious convulsive motions in the eyes, and that when the child was spoken to, and tried to look towards the speaker, they were turned upside down, so that only the white part became visible. She was born in this state. I inquired of the mother whether, when she was with child, she had seen any body turn their eyes in this manner. She replied that she was then in constant attendance on her mother, or mother-in-law, who was supposed to be dying, but afterwards recovered, and whose eyes were affected with similar convulsions. Hinc illæ lachrymæ; this was the cause of the infant's misfortune. I believe it was not originally blind, but that the focus was situated too much on one side of the eye-ball, so that vision was
impossible unless the eyes were placed in a particular position with respect to the rays of light, as is observable in persons that squint. The natural situation of the eyes in the subject before me was partly under the upper lid, so that only half the pupil was exposed, and this was sufficient for vision in one particular direction only. I know no remedy for such a misfortune, except perhaps glasses, cut in a peculiar manner for this express purpose, might help it. I recommended however that the child's cradle should be placed with the feet towards the window, so that she might, though not at first without inconvenience, gradually acquire a habit of turning her eyes downward in pursuit of the light; for by repeated efforts any thing becomes possible and easy. Bartholin's management of squint-eyed people is founded on the same principles.
After a violent storm of thunder with much rain, I went, about four in the afternoon, to the new town of Pithoea, and ex
amined several gardens, in order to learn what plants are able to stand the severe winters of this inhospitable climate. Among them were the Burnet (Poterium Sanguisorba) and the Costmary (Tanacetum Balsamita). Some young oaks had been raised from acorns the preceding year, the greater part of which were killed by the winter frosts. A few of them only had put forth a fresh shoot just above the ground. The apple-trees were almost entirely destroyed.
June 19.
I set out very early in the morning on a sea voyage to explore the natural productions of the tract called Skargarden and the islands belonging to it. The water a mile out at sea was scarcely salt, on account of the numerous rivers which here discharge themselves into the bay. No plants worth notice were to be found, though I searched carefully every place likely to afford any. Near the beach, where the tide often rises
in winter ten or twelve fathoms, I observed an Alder thicket now white with little patches of Trientalis and Mesomora (Trientalis europæa and Cornus suecica), whose snowy blossoms were a great ornament to the shore. Ray therefore justly mentions[48] the latter plant as growing in maritime places in Sweden. Here likewise grew the Male and Female Lychnis (L. dioica), for the most part with red flowers, very rarely with white; as well as the Gramen miliaceum (Milium effusum?), and a Rush two feet high, with its sharp stem reaching a span above the panicle, which is lateral, and divided into three principal branches. Of this there was also a smaller variety. (This Rush must have been the Juncus effusus. See Fl. Lapp. n. 117.)
The people hereabouts talked much of mountains haunted by hobgoblins, particularly the hill called Svenberget, situated between new and old Pithoea; also of seas