Letter 4541

Jacmin’s botanical manuscript was written by hand. He admits that it is full of mistakes. Mr Vaillant has informed him of three new classes, which have been presented to l’Académie des sciences and printed in the Mémoires de l’académie. Jacmin discusses his plans for the text as well as botanical and anatomical scholarship, including the work of the ‘celebre Anatomiste Mr. Winslow à Paris’. Jacmin requests that Sloane and the Royal Society condescend to his level and accept his botanical manuscript. He can be reached at Mr Ludewig’s residence ‘à la Steinthor’. L. J. Jacmin was a physician who performed an autopsy on a sexagenarian with cataracts. He removed the eye from the cadaver’s socket and cleansed it in water to satisfy his curiosity. The man took ‘la friction mercurielle’ three times during his youth. There was a crystalline substance thereon, which he believes is a ‘continuation de la Retine’. He suspects the condition has something to do with ‘l’humeur vitrée’. He compared his observations to those of the ‘ancien Maitre Mr. de Woolhouse et le Professeur Allemand Heister’, which were consistent with their descriptions of cataracts.