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Here a cut, there a wrench or sprain, and later came thirty or forty at a time with snow-blindness or conjunctivitis very painful and disabling, though not fatal to sight.
In the back of the eye is the retina, which acts as a film for the eye's picture. "Now, it was the part of the eye around that opening which got inflamed and began to exude. Such inflammation may come from eye-strain, sometimes from glare like furnace heat, or the reflection of the sun on the snow. Snow-blindness is sometimes painful. Why? Iritis.
How excellent these glasses are appears clearly enough from the fact that I never had the slightest touch of snow-blindness on the southern journey, although the spectacles were perfectly open and allowed the light to enter freely everywhere. It will perhaps be suggested that I am less susceptible to this ailment than others, but I know from personal experience that such is not the case.
"Shure, it's the same sort of thing I've been feeling," exclaimed Pat. "It's mighty unpleasant, but I thought I'd say nothing about it." It did not occur to me at the time that the symptoms were those which precede snow-blindness, and Alick was too far behind to hear what was said.
The sun grows very bright upon the snow these days of late March and early April. Even through heavily tinted glasses it inflames the eyes more or less, and a couple of hours without protection would bring snow-blindness. Bright days at this season are the only days in all the year when the camera shutter may be used at its full speed.
The symptoms of snow-blindness are inflammation of the inner coating of the lids, accompanied by intense pain and impairment of the vision, so as to disable the sufferer from the performance of his duties. A wash of diluted tincture of opium is probably the best remedy, and gives almost immediate relief.
They soon found it necessary, however, to tie some spare comforters round their heads, to shade their eyes from the glare of the sun, the pricking sensation, the prelude to snow-blindness, again quickly returning. After travelling for some hours, they looked out anxiously for the huts of the Esquimaux they expected to see.
If some one would invent a preventive against shortness of breath as efficient as amber glasses are against snow-blindness, climbing at great altitudes would lose all its terrors for one mountaineer. So far as it was possible to judge, no other member of the party was near his altitude limit.
Then all the clouds floated away, the sun came out, and the whole world was a dazzling globe of white, so intense that it hurt Paul's eyes. "We've got to guard against snow-blindness," said Shif'less Sol, "an' I'm thinkin' o' a plan that'll keep us from sufferin'." He procured small pieces of wood, and fitted them together so there would be only a narrow slit between.
Gives me a headache," the convict answered sulkily. "Can you see anything at all yet?" "Not a thing. Looks to me like I never would." Tom turned his head for him, so that he faced the blaze squarely. "No light at all?" "Nope. Don't reckon I ever will see." "Maybe you will. I've known' cases of snow-blindness where they couldn't see for a month an' came out all right."
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