Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/732

 712 BLIND of the South Sea islands into the West Indies. He sailed from Spithead for Tahiti Dec. 23, 1787, and reached his destination Oct. 26, 1788. lie remained until the 4th of April following, when he set out for Jamaica with 1,015 bread- fruit trees, besides a variety of other plants. On the morning of the 28th of April a large portion of the crew mutinied, and he with 18 others was set afloat in the ship's launch, with a 28-gallon cask of water, 150 pounds of bread, 32 pounds of pork, and a small quantity of rum and wine, and only a quadrant and com- pass to direct their course. In 46 days they reached the Dutch island of Timor, having run a distance of 3,618 nautical miles, and scarcely having an opportunity to rest on shore or add to their supplies, without the loss of a single man. Bligh proceeded to England at the first opportunity, arriving March 14, 1790, and published a narrative of the mutiny, which ex- cited a good deal of sympathy, though it was afterward believed that the outbreak was caused by his harsh treatment of his men. Fourteen of the mutineers who had remained in Tahiti were arrested in 1791 by the officers of the Pandora ; four were lost by shipwreck on the passage to England, and the remaining ten tried and three executed, the rest being ac- quitted or pardoned. Another portion of the crew took possession of the Bounty and settled on Pitcairn island. (See ADAMS, JOHN, and PITOAIRN ISLAND.) Lieut. Bligh was sent out again on a similar mission in 1791, brought a large number of breadfruit trees from Tahiti to the West Indies, and sowed the seeds of Euro- pean vegetables in Tasmania. In 1806 he was made governor of New South Wales, but his tyrannical conduct provoked the subordinate civil and military officers to arrest him and send him to England. BLIND, Th, persons who have not the sense of sight. In common use the term also in- cludes persons who possess some power of vision, but not sufficient to enable them to dis- tinguish the forms of objects. The causes of blindness are both ante-natal and post-natal. It is contended by some that psychological in- fluences may induce blindness in the offspring, as when the mother has received a powerful nervous impression from witnessing some hor- rible spectacle, or an extremely disgusting case of sore eyes or malformation, and cases have been adduced which are supposed to establish the theory ; but the probability is that there is not sufficient proof to warrant its reception. The ante-natal causes which are acknowledged to produce blindness are the intermarriage of near relatives, scrofula, and syphilis ; but con- genital cases of blindness are not found to be so frequent as those of deafness. In inter- marriage, and where the parents are imperfect- ly developed, there is liability to want of de- velopment of the nerves of special sense ; but in most cases ante-natal as well as post-natal blindness is caused by imperfection or disease of the optical apparatus which is accessory to the nerves of special sense; or in other words, the defect generally exists in some part of tho globe of the eye. Hereditary blindness is not frequent. Of 700 blind persons in the insti- tutions at Philadelphia whose parentage is known, according to Mr. Chapin, the prin- cipal of the Pennsylvania institution for the blind, only 12 had either parent blind. An in- vestigation which he made at the hospice dea Quime Vinrjts, Paris, revealed tho remarkable fact that of the several hundred children born there of parents one or both of whom were blind, there was not one blind at birth. After birth the principal causes of blindness are: 1, special diseases, such as purulent ophthalmia, inflammation of the cornea and of the iris, cataract or opacity of the crystalline lens, and amaurosis or paralysis of the optic nerve ; 2, general diseases, whose sequela; attack different parts of the eye, as smallpox, scarlatina, mea- sles, typhus fever and other inflammatory fe- vers, and scrofula; 3, injuries from blows or wounds, and from malpractice, the latter being one of the most fruitful causes. The following table exhibits the causes of the malady in nearly all the cases received in the Liverpool asylum for the blind from its foundation in 17S)1 to January, 1859 : CAUSES. Totally. rrtiallf. Whole Number. 202 49 251 278 43 826 66 98 149 99 47 146 '8 64 140 28 15 40 6 14 20 14 5 19 8 6 18 8 3 G S 1 9 5 8 8 28 27 55 An examination of 500 cases from the Perkins institution for the blind at Boston gives the following percentage of causes: congenital, 37'75; disease after birth, 47'09; accidents, 15'16. The extraordinary exemption from blindness in the United States as compared with Great Britain and Ireland may be in a great measure attributed to the far less preva- lence of smallpox in this country. Dr. Cromp- ton of Manchester estimated that in Great Britain and Ireland more than 4,000 were blind from smallpox, out of a blind population of 28,450 in 1841. In the Glasgow asylum nearly one fifth were blind from smallpox. In the Pennsylvania institution, of 476 received up to 1863, 'only 21, or -fa of the whole, lost their sight by that disease. In the Ohio institution, of 118 up to a certain date, only one was blind from this cause. Proceeding from temperate latitudes toward the equator, the proportion of blind to the entire population increases, but this is more noticeable in the eastern than in the western hemisphere. The glittering sand which reflects the light and heat of the sun,