Served all day in the infirmary, and witnessed M. Dayau's first application of the serrefine. I felt all the afternoon a little grain of sand, as it were, in one eye. I was afraid to think what it might be, for in the dark early morning, whilst syringing the eye of one of my tiny patients for purulent ophthalmia, some of the water had spurted into my own eye. It was much swollen at night, and in the morning the lids were closely adherent from suppuration.

I applied for permission to leave until the eye was well, and was refused. I went to the infirmary of the élèves and informed M. Blot that I was prisoner. He examined the eye carefully, discovered that it was the dreaded disease, consulted his chief, and then told me that as everything depended on the early active treatment, he should give up the first days entirely to me. He expressed much sympathy, arranged everything for me in the most thoughtful way, and I went to bed — I little knew for how long! I despatched a note to my sister, and then active treatment commenced — the eyelids cauterised, leeches to the temple, cold compresses, ointment of belladonna, opium to the forehead, purgatives, footbaths, and sinapisms, with broth for diet. The eye was syringed every hour, and I realised the danger of the disease from the weapons employed against it. Poor Anna came down in the evening to sympathise with the 'inflamed eye' I had written about, and was dreadfully shocked. She has told me since how many times she hid behind the curtain to cry. My friendly young doctor came every two hours, day and night, to tend the eye, Mlle. Mallet acting in the alternate hours. The infirmary was kept profoundly quiet, and a guard appointed day and night. The sympathy was universal and deep, the élèves asking after me with tears. An unheard-of permission was granted to Anna to visit me three times a day. For three days this continued — then the disease had done its worst; and I learned from the tone of my friends that my eye was despaired of. Ah! how dreadful it was to find the daylight gradually fading as my kind doctor bent over me, and removed with an exquisite delicacy of touch the films that had formed over the pupil! I could see him for a moment clearly, but the sight soon vanished, and the eye was left in darkness.

Dear Uncle

I thank you with all my heart for the kind sympathy you have expressed for me so warmly. Fate certainly gave me a strange and sudden blow, but now I am up again strong and hopeful, and eager for work, and I beg uncle to feel quite sure that a brave soldier's niece will never disgrace the colours she fights under; but will be proud of the wounds gained in a great cause, and resolve more strongly than ever to 'conquer or die.' In truth, dear friends, the accident might have been so much worse that I am more disposed to rejoice than to complain. Even in its present state the eye is not a very striking disfigurement, and it will gradually become still less so. As to the more serious consideration — loss of vision — I still hope to recover that in time, and meanwhile the right eye grows daily stronger. I can write without difficulty, read a little, and hope soon to resume my usual employments. I certainly esteem myself very fortunate, and I still mean to be at no very distant day the first lady surgeon in the world.