Eyes

Mr Grimstone and the Revitalised Mummy Pea

In a Highgate garden known as the Herbary grew plants destined to invigorate nostrils all over the world. Savory, rosemary and lavender scented the air, while orris-root thrived under the carefully cultivated soil. Dried, powdered and mixed with salt, they would become Grimstone’s Eye Snuff, promising to cure cataracts, eradicate the need for spectacles and […]

Angelick Snuff

This noble composition was on sale for most of the first half of the 18th century but enjoyed a moment of fame 200 years later when an American news editor stumbled on the advert and found it entertaining enough to fill a space in his paper. Other papers lifted the text and printed it as […]

Ede’s Patent American Eye Liquid

EDE’S PATENT AMERICAN EYE LIQUID CURES Eyes! which Ache with tears that’s shed, Eyes! which Bloodshot overspread; Eyes! which Cataracts oppress, Eyes! which Dimness too distress; Eyes! which Evening fogs soon blight, Eyes! which Fever weakens quite; Eyes! which Great depression gives Eyes! which Health enfeebled leaves; Eyes! which Inflammation show, Eyes! which Jaundice spoils […]

Dr Ball's Ivory Eye Cups

This device, invented by Dr Ball of Nassau Street, New York, was a small cup with a squeezy rubber balloon attached to it, as pictured left. The invention made its way to England in 1872, when Chichester minister Joseph Fletcher filed a British patent for it. The patient had to put the cup over the eye and […]

Grimstone's Eye Snuff

Grimstone’s Eye Snuff was widely advertised, purportedly at a cost of £5000 per year to its inventor. Testimonials were often included in the ads, and the product even inspired one satisfied customer to write a poem about it (Quoted in The Champion and Weekly Herald, 3 Feb 1839): . From Blackwood’s Lady’s Magazine for May […]