age, that each eye in turn might take a spell of night duty; it being found that guarding the eye for one day was sufficient to restore the tone of the optic nerve, a torpor of which, and of the retina, is supposed to be the proximate cause of the disease. I much question whether any purely medical treatment would have had so complete, and, above all, so immediate an effect. Persons affected with nyctalopia become perfectly blind as night approaches, and continue so till the return of day-light; the medical treatment recommended is bleeding and purging, blisters applied repeatedly to the temples, close to the external canthus of the eye, cinchona bark, joined with chalybeates, &c.; all of which was impracticable by us, having no medicine on board our little vessel. I am aware that this disease frequently attends scurvy in tropical climates, and is sometimes occasioned by derangement of the digestive organs and hepatic system, in which cases our simple treatment would be useless; but in the above instance it was evidently caused only by the sun.”
In Mar. 1803, Mr. Smith joined the Terror bomb, commanded by Captain George Nicholas Hardinge, and then employed in attendance upon the Princess of Wales, during her sojourn at East Cliff, Ramsgate, but subsequently forming part of the squadron under Sir James Saumarez, at the bombardment of Granville; on which occasion she had two men wounded by splinters[1].
Shortly after this event, Mr. Smith followed Captain Hardinge into the Scorpion brig, where he remained until that officer was appointed to the Valorous, a post-ship, in Jan. 1805, when he rejoined his old commander. On quitting the Scorpion for that purpose, he received the following certificate from the late Sir Philip Carteret Silvester, under whom he had served ever since the brilliant exploit for which Captain Hardinge was promoted[2]:
- ↑ See Suppl. Part I. p. 44.
- ↑ See Suppl. Part III. p. 102 et seq. N.B. Mr. Smith was then absent in charge of a prize.
