I thought it was something like conjunctivitis (or what we call "pink eye"), since she seems to connect it with the cold. The symptoms seemed to ease up on occasion as she wrote, "The more I write, the better my Eye gets..."

JA also writes "...which will probably prevent my finishing this letter myself.--My mother has undertaken to do it for me..." and "before I give up my pen to my Mother..." It sounds like JA was preparing to dictate her letter to give her eye a rest. Did this happen, or when she turned the pen over, did her mother write a separate letter? In other words, are these letters all in JA's handwriting, or did others insert some of their own news?