Treatment of the diseases of the eye, by means of prussic acid vapour, and other medicinal agents

In Short

Dr. Alexander Turnbull presents a clinical defense and case record of treating chronic ophthalmic diseases—including corneal opacities, staphylomas, cataracts, and amaurosis—using hydrocyanic acid vapour, chlorocyanic acid, chloruret of iodine, and carbon-rich essential oil embrocations. Compiled from published communications in the Lancet and Medical Gazette, alongside corroborating reports by practitioners like Dr. Donald Maclean and G.K.H. Paterson, the text argues that these potent topical agents stimulate local circulation, permeate tissues, and promote absorption where conventional caustic, blistering, and surgical operations fail. It stands as a nineteenth-century therapeutic pilot study in local pharmacological revision.

The Story

Turnbull opens by requesting professional indulgence for minor literary flaws while asserting that his clinical facts demand dispassionate consideration. He establishes a foundational baseline: conventional ophthalmic institutions treat hopeless cases with caustic drops, black ointment, scarification, lancing, and counter-irritant blistering, yet leave patients blind or perpetually weeping. In response, Turnbull details applying hydrocyanic acid vapour via ground-glass eye-cup bottles, discovering that its potency wanes over time, which forces a search for alternatives. He introduces chlorocyanic acid and sulphuretted chyazic acid, which stimulate warmth and irritation with less pupillary dilatation, though patients can rarely bear contact past half a minute. Next comes chloruret of iodine, which causes mild uneasiness for two minutes, contracts the pupil, induces teardrops upon removal, and avoids uncombined iodine's disagreeable yellow skin stain.

To justify systemic and local action, Turnbull invokes Professor Liebig’s organic chemistry: carbon in vapours or alcohol-dissolved essential oils permeates the cuticle, meets arterial oxygen conveyed by respiration, and disengages heat. This thermal and vascular activation heals not only eyes but also deafness and indurated glands via bisulphuret of carbon.

The argument transitions into cumulative clinical proof. John Wright clears smallpox-damaged corneal opacities; blind-school scholar Ann Fitzgibbons and a St. James's workhouse resident discarded as light-blind discard their guides after monthly applications. Sarah and Elizabeth Hopping recover walking sight despite pea-sized socket tumours and caustic scarring. An extraordinary case of an oversized, dark-blue rolling infant eye shrinks by half and achieves reading capability first through castor and almond oils, then prussic acid. Diana Primrose stops pulling inverted eyelashes as opacities recede. William Stevens and Mr. Monro (injured by a whip lash) experience partial cataract absorption, though Turnbull notes needle capsule laceration aids lenticular resolution. Ann Weeks and young subjects record steady retinal and pupillary responsiveness.

Colleague accounts reinforce the thesis. W.H. Newnham testifies to curing a twenty-year corneal opacity; Professor Forbes traces former whaling cooper John Milne’s visual degradation after sixteen years in Davis's Straits and Greenland; Dr. Donald Maclean reports Scottish series where acid resolves scrofulous opacities, rheumatic orbital pain, retinal strain, and capsular cataracts. G.K.H. Paterson of Perth validates combining acid vapour with bedtime belladonna smears to prevent pupillary adhesion.

Chapter Two shifts to functional amaurosis treated via compound embrocations of clove and pimento rubbed with a friction sponge and chilled/warm water rinses, echoing Tyrrell’s red-blood deficiency model and Magendie’s fifth/optic nerve lectures. John Plunkett tracks spatial recovery and reading gains; William Dale overcomes rainbow-halo gaslight flashes; Eleanor M'Cartney recovers duodecimo-reading sight from workhouse paralysis; Alexander Cruikshanks avoids scheduled cataract surgery, reading magazines sans glasses after six weeks.

Turnbull closes eyeing future pulmonary/heart treatments and cataloging alkaloid derivatives endorsed by Johnson, Magendie, Scudamore, Pereira, and Turner-Liebig-Gregory.

How It Unfolds

The programmatic premise: Turnbull frames his published Lancet and Medical Gazette letters as proof that confidence in his remedies is warranted by hopeless cases. He establishes that standard ophthalmic institutions fail these patients before alternative vapour trials begin.

Vaporous substitution and limits: Finding hydrocyanic acid power declines with application, Turnbull introduces chlorocyanic acid and sulphuretted chyazic acid for greater warmth and limited pupil dilation. He adds chloruret of iodine for its tear-inducing removal and absence of yellow skin staining.

Carbon-thermal rationale: Drawing on Liebig, Turnbull argues that carbon atoms in vapours or alcohol vehicles permeate the cuticle to unite with arterial oxygen, generating localized heat. This same carbon-cuticle mechanism treats nervous deafness and indurated glands.

Empirical ocular regeneration: Case studies show structural recovery: Wright and Fitzgibbons clear opacities; Hoppings overcome red pea socket tumours; an infant dark-blue rolling eye shrinks via oils and acid; Primrose realigns eyelashes; Monro and Stevens absorb cataracts.

Colleague validation: Newnham attests to twenty-year opacity cure, Forbes details Greenland cooper John Milne, Maclean reports Scottish cases of scrofulous opacities and rheumatic pain, and Paterson pairs acid with belladonna.

Embrocation physics and functional sight: Chapter Two applies clove and pimento embrocations with friction sponges and water washes, boosting circulation for amaurosis. Plunkett, Dale, M'Cartney, and Cruikshanks regain functional sight or cancel surgery.

The People

• John Wright wants clear vision; smallpox-and-cold-induced opacity and failed caustic treatments stand in the way; he ends up with a clearing right eye and transparent left eye.
• Ann Fitzgibbons wants to see faces instead of outlines; four-year post-infancy inflammation and failed hospital visits stand in the way; she attends the blind school with improving visual tracking.
• Diana Primrose wants comfort and working vision; turned-in eyelashes rubbing the cornea and painful partial eyelid removal stand in the way; she stops pulling lashes and resumes work comfortably.
• John Milne wants safe street movement; sixteen years on Greenland/Davis Straits whale-ships followed by violent inflammation stand in the way; he remains locked in severe visual impairment documented by Professor Forbes.
• William Dale wants functional sight; rainbow-hued gaslight flashes, muddy green pupils, and failed nux vomica twitching stand in the way; a year of pimento embrocation restores pupillary response and reading ability.
• Alexander Cruikshanks wants clear sight without operative risk; double-vision cataract stands in the way; six weeks of treatment resolves double vision and restores reading sight sans glasses.
• Dr. Alexander Turnbull wants professional recognition and safe absorption of hopeless eye/nerve conditions; institutional skepticism and volatile drug limits stand in the way; he compiles published proof of structural and circulatory reversal.

In Its Own Voice

Opening the medical communication regarding hydrocyanic acid limits:

One reason why I did not rest satisfied with the effects produced by the hydrocyanic acid, was, that its action, like that of all other medicines, decreased in power by continued application; thereby rendering it necessary to have occasional recourse to other medicines, in order to insure a more speedy recovery.

Explaining the thermal carbon mechanism via Liebig:

In whatever way carbon may combine with oxygen, the act of combination cannot take place without the disengagement of heat.

Dr. Paterson praising the discovery in Perth:

However, before I have done, it is but justice to ascribe this noble discovery to Dr. Turnbull, whose indefatigable research has not failed to find out others, no less wonderful in their effects, as they are useful to mankind; and for such he cannot but claim to himself the best thanks of the profession at large.

What It's Really About

The book asks whether topical gas and cutaneous friction can supersede mechanical destruction, scarification, and cutting in deep ophthalmic pathology. It investigates how volatile carbon-bearing molecules cross biological barriers—cuticle or cornea—to re-engage dormant vascular and neural energy. Beneath the clinical case logs lies a polemic against institutional therapeutic fatalism: chronic conditions labeled "hopeless" or ruined by prior caustic abuse often reflect kinetic and vascular starvations rather than dead tissue. Turnbull tests the boundary between poisoning and vital stimulation, arguing that local physiological friction, heat disengagement, and solvent absorption can bypass the knife. The underlying question is thermodynamic and physiological: can chemical-driven local metabolism dissolve organic structural opacities and restore functional innervation where general treatments and brutal counter-irritants fail?

Why Read It Today

Medical historians, history-of-chemistry enthusiasts, and readers fascinated by nineteenth-century empiricism will love this text. Reading it feels like sitting beside a Victorian consulting room ledger—dense with patient addresses, specific months, exact drop counts, and fierce polemical footnotes quoting Liebig, Magendie, and the Lancet. What stays with you is the raw human grit of blind workhouse residents, whaling coopers, and smallpox survivors submitting eye cups to prussic acid vapours, alongside the stark realization of how brutal pre-aseptic ophthalmology was (lancing lids, repeated blistering, black ointments, and caustic drops).

The difficulties are real: nineteenth-century medical prose is clinical, repetitive, and occasionally defensive; case histories blur into accumulating statistical proof of corneal clearing; and chemical theories (carbon-oxygen skin combustion via Liebig) reflect early nineteenth-century metabolic gaps. Yet the friction sponge plates and pragmatic tracking provide an unfiltered window into a practitioner fighting therapeutic nihilism. It reads not as a smooth narrative, but as an artifact of experimental urgency—a document where chemistry meets human desperation on Russell Square, demanding that readers weigh volatile proof against institutional despair.