The surgical treatment of trachoma : a paper read in the Section of Ophthalmology, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, at Nottingham, July, 1892 / by Sydney Stephenson.

  • Stephenson, Sydney, 1862-1923.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The surgical treatment of trachoma : a paper read in the Section of Ophthalmology, at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association, at Nottingham, July, 1892 / by Sydney Stephenson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    employed a knife where Mr. Saunders used a pair of scissors. “ I have seen,” said Dr. Vetch in 1820, (7) “ many cases in which it {i.e., the granulated surface) has been removed with more zeal than discretion, twenty or thirty times successively.” It is evident, therefore, that surgical means were employed at the time Vetch wrote in a vigorous and energetic way. So far the practice of British surgeons has alone been considered, but a cursory glance at foreign litera- ture will show that the use of operative measures in trachoma was by no means confined to these islands. About this period we find, for instance, many continen- tal surgeons recommending and practising scarification of the lids and partial excision of diseased conjunc- tiva. The German oculist, V. Walther, stands out prominently as an advocate of such measures. His plan was to remove a large piece of the conjunctiva, and he claimed great benefit from such treatment, not only in chronic, but also in acute, forms of the disease. Rust, Eble, and Gouzee recommended the employment of surgical measures in trachoma, though not necess- arily to the exclusion of other means of treatment. To be brief, it may be taken as granted that at this period operative methods enjoyed considerable vogue both at home and abroad. Before long, however, the escharotic treatment of trachoma sprang into prominence. McGregor, Sur- geon to the Royal Military Asylum, had recom- mended the use of these agents in the year 1812, and he laid especial stress upon the advantages possessed by lunar caustic in the treatment of granular fids. Vetch, after a trial of surgical methods, de- clared his preference for the use of copper sulphate, silver nitrate, lead acetate, verdigris, burnt alum, and potash, for the employment of which remedies he laid down a series of excellent rules. O’Halloran, an army surgeon of great exiDerience, used blue-stone and lunar causticinl824. [“PracticalRemarksonAcuteandChronic Ophthalmia, and on Remittent Fever, London, 1824.”] “It is astonishing,” wrote O’Halloran, “ how quickly the state of the eyelid, denominated granular, is removed