Extirpation of chronically inflamed tear sacs / by Fred T. Tooke.

  • Tooke, Fred T.
Date:
[1906]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Extirpation of chronically inflamed tear sacs / by Fred T. Tooke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    s tiO found the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus and staphylococcus pyo- genes citreus, the hacillus coli, and streptococci. He also found a host of saprophytes, as the bacillus subtilis, radicosus^ rainosus, luteus, fiuorescens putidus, and sacchromyces with many others, and in one case showed the presence of the actinomyces albus. One organism, that most dreaded by ophtlialmic surgeons in cases of corneal abrasion, the pneumococcuSj is strangely enough not included in Eicehi's classification. Axenfeld states that his diplobacili us is also found to flourish here as it does in the conjunctival sac. Many workers along these lines have shown that if there is a stricture of the lacrimal canal at any point, more particularly at the nasal duct, as is most commonly the case, that stagnation of the] drainage of tears is produced, and that no more fertile culture medium can be found than the lining of the sac. We also know that, in diseased conditions of the lacrimal sac, the organism most commonly found there, the staphylococcus albus, assumes a, decidedly more virulent form than when it is found in the conjunctiva with the tear sac in a healthy state. Further, when a diseased sac has been removed, that a non-virudent species of micro-organism is generally found to be present in the con- junctival secretion, whilst, when the diseased sac is undisturbed, fonns of a much more virulent type are found to flourish. That there are numerous cases of stenosis of the nasal duct and many of actual dacryocystitis where no rational treatment has been attempted or requested is a fact brought home to us every day by many of the tmfortunate conditions of permanent blindness due to subsequent corneal involvement. We cannot close our eyes to the fact that there are numbers who cannot or will not weax protecting glasses and yet who are, on account of their respective callings, daily exposed to corneal injuries. The meclianic, the foundry-man, the farmer, the lumberman, are to be numbered amongst those who are frequently, unknown to themselves, aflUcted with tear sac trouble, at the same time to whoui superficial m- juries to the cornea are of frequent occurrence. Countiy people parti- cularly are exposed to tremendous risks. Such people sufEenng from dacryocystitis axe frequently isolated from any one with a definite knowledgo of special diseases of the eye, and disastrous results may follow a simple abrasion of the cornea by a wisp of straw or the end of a twig. An excellent opportunity for permatitently curing dacryocysitis and preventing many lamentable conditions of blindness, more particularly in the poorer ciasses is at our hand in the radical extirpation of th. lacrimal sac. Ophthalmic surgeons are slowly but surely becommg