Medical epidemics : glaucoma and iridectomy : a review.

Date:
1860
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical epidemics : glaucoma and iridectomy : a review. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    retina inwards, and pressed the other contents of the eye through the corneal section !! That certainly was intra-ocular pres- sure with a vengeance, where the result of the new operation was to squeeze out the other contents of the eye. It is men- tioned incidentally that in many of these cases there was a rotten state of the conjunctiva; in general practice, we know surgeons do not usually operate where there is a rotten state of the skin. Slight and simple, as we were at first in- formed, was the operation of iridectomy, and as we have de- scribed it above, still there must have been occasionally great- violence employed, for we read that, in drawing down the eye with a forceps, for the purpose of fixing, it appeared in several cases to have caused rupture of the suspensory ligament and escape of the vitreous, &c. Now it very seldom occurs in extraction, unless where the vitreous is fluid, that the whole of that body is lost; there must, therefore, have been a very extensive opening made to relieve intra-ocular pressure in these cases. As already mentioned, it is acknowledged that in several of these cases the conjunctiva was rotten; but furthermore, we are told that great care must be taken, when seizing the iris, not to touch the lens or suspensory ligament, for the iris, being atrophied and rotten, is easily perforated by an instrument. Now that there are rotten irides—the term is a good one, we often employ it ourselves—we must admit; but that any surgeon of five years' standing would operate on eyes in which he knew the conjunctiva without, and the iris within, to be rotten, is certainly a more heroic proceeding than we ever knew to occur in this country. Let us end this disgusting detail with one or two other ex- tracts and statements. Occasionally the lens in its capsule presented in the section, and six hours after the operation was found with about a third of the vitreous humour (of ab- normal consistence) at the side of the patient. Again, the opaque lens of several of the above cases was extracted with a favourable result. What this favourable result was, Dr. Bader has not stated, and we are unable to discover any record of the fact in the statistical table. One case presented all the fatal accidents of the operation ; first, some difficulty in seizing the iris, then escape of some vitreous, then of the lens, then of a large portion of vitreous, with the hyaloid fossa [?] attached to it; then of the remainder of the vitreous, followed by about half an ounce of blood. We presume it was the following sentence induced Dr. Hildige not to count over the cures given in the table to which we have so frequently refeiTed: Antici-
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