Over 20 years ago, right after I started building dogwood furniture, I got a fleck of dogwood bark in my eye. My wife tried cautiously to fish it out, without success. I suffered sorely for three days before I learned what to do. Jack, a retired carpenter in his 90s at the time instructed his wife, Letha, to give me a flaxseed. "Now pull your bottom eyelid out and drop'er in there." He said. "You gotta be kidding ... it?s bigger than what's in there!" He assured me it would attach itself to the thing in my eye and then just jump right out. That sounded absurd, but I was ready to try anything. To my astonishment the flaxseed roamed around in my eye and in a few seconds jumped out on my cheek holding the tiny fleck of dogwood bark. Instant relief...out of site out of mind! A few years ago after my mother died I was going through her belongings and found a botanical catalogue from Indiana Botanic Gardens dated 1925. The description of using flaxseed to remove foreign matter from the eye fit exactly my experience. "FLAX: This seed was an essential household medicine in Grandmother's day, and many generations before. To remove bits of foreign bodies from the eye: Place a grain of flaxseed under the lower lid, and close the lids. The seed becomes surrounded by thick adherent mucilage, which entraps the foreign body, and soon carries it out from the angle of the eye." I have used flaxseed many times. I am always amazed at how it tracks down foreign matter in my eye, like a cold trailing 'coon dog and then jumps out of my eye onto my cheek!