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 improvement might follow, and indeed I did get slightly better, but only for a short time. Four or five days had scarcely elapsed from the time the improvement set in, when the malady again took a turn for the worse, and I was not merely reduced to my former state, but to a far more deplorable one. I then had recourse to several doctors. One of them required me to take about 400 pills of some particular make; I took them as prescribed and followed minutely the directions given me, but all to no effect. I was bled four times, but without avail. On five occasions I submitted to blistering operations behind the ears without deriving any benefit thereby. I was at this time visited by other well known eye specialists, amongst others Cavaliere Sperim, Dr. Fissore and Dr. Paganini, but, after submitting me to various tests, they told me plainly that the way to cure the disease with which I was afflicted was still to them an unknown problem.

Weary, then, at my hopeless plight I knew not where to turn. My days were spent continually in a dark room. All amusement was a source of horror to me and my eyes had become abnormally inflamed. Towards the end of October I seemed to feel some improvement, and, with the hope of a speedy and complete curel returned to the college. A fortnight, however, had hardly elapsed