The eye in health and disease : being a series of articles on the anatomy and physiology of the human eye, and its surgical and medical treatment / by B. Joy Jeffries.

  • Jeffries, B. Joy (Benjamin Joy), 1833-1915.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The eye in health and disease : being a series of articles on the anatomy and physiology of the human eye, and its surgical and medical treatment / by B. Joy Jeffries. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    115/132 (page 109)
    washing out the eyes, as I described with the same trouble in new- born infants. The minutest speck of the secretion coming in con- tact with the sound eye of another person, will excite the same disease in it, and thus it is spread through barracks or armies as a fearful scourge. Isolation of the cases, absolute cleanliness, careful destruction of all rags, etc., are indespensable, of course, and the best care and attention on the part of the surgeon, who not infre- quently has fallen a victim to his devotion to his patients. Pterygerium. I am obliged to use this professional name, as there is no common one in English. I mean a little fleshy-looking growth coming up generally from the inside of the eye in a triangular form, and en- croaching on the cornea. It very rarely grows half-way over the transparent part of the eye in front. When of any size, it produces some irritation, and patients are most always afraid it will grow over and cover the sight of the eye. This almost never occurs. The old operation for removing this fleshy growth did not prevent its recur- rence. Nowadays we strangle it, or transplant it below the cornea, where it either withers away or does no harm. Disease of the Membranes within the Globe, Very few of the diseases of the internal parts of the eyeball pre- sent, externally, any indication of their presence. Varying degrees of pain, intolerance of light, and dimness of vision, up to total blindness, are all the symptoms the ophthalmic surgeon formerly had to guide his treatment, till the invention of the ophthalmoscope, by Prof. Helmholz, revolutionized ophthalmology, or the study of the diseases of the eye, by allowing us, through this instrument, to see perfectly the interior of the eyeball, and tell exactly what disease exists, in what membrane, whether in the crystalline lens, the vitreous humor, the optic nerve, the retina, or the choroid coat, etc. Of course, therefore, it is useless to speak here of these diseases, which the ophthalmic surgeon alone can see by means of the oph- thalmoscope, and understands how to treat. Some forms of the diseases of the membranes within the globe are not amenable to treatment, are not curable. Before we could see just what they were, the unfortunate patients were naturally subjected to all sorts of treatment; of course, perfectly useless, and sometimes very hurt- ful both to the eye and general system. For instance, there is a form of blindness which begins to show itself as dimness of vision, mistaken for near-sightedness, in childhood, and goes steadily on to