The relations of blepharitis ciliaris to ametropia / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
[1878?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The relations of blepharitis ciliaris to ametropia / by D.B. St. John Roosa. 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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    will materially assist in making the patient uncomfortable, and its correction will do great good. Dr. Hotz is of the opinion that blepharitis occurs chiefly in children. I am not sure that this is a fact; certainly those cases observed by me in private practice were chiefly among adults. Of two hundred and one cases seen at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, a little more than fifty per cent, occurred in persons under fifteen ; but of very young children, that is, of five years of age or under, there was only twenty-eight per cent., whereas Dr. H. states that he has observed the greatest number among these. Dr. H. asks if I omitted young children fi'om my statistics, because I could not employ the tests of vision. I answer that I liave inserted in my statistics every case that has presented itself to me. Because children do not read and write, it cannot be argued, however, that they do not use the ciliary muscle and interni. Any one who lias watched a child at play, for instance, ])icking up small objects for a number of minutes at a time, will soon be convinced that they are often using a great deal of accommodative power, in their effort for exact vision, before they learn to read and write. If Dr. Alt and Dr. Hotz will examine their cases under atropia, I am sure they will form different conclusions, as to the existence of ametropia in connection with bleplraritis ciliaris, from those that they have expressed. I still believe that there is much more than mere coincidence in the frequent occurrence of blepharitis in connection with strain on the accommodation from refractive defects and opaci- ties of the cornea, and that correction of the error will do as much towards the relief of the hyperaemia and inflammation of the lids as the correction of liypermetropia does for asthenopia. I suspect, how- ever, that since Donders’ exposition of asthenopia we have all over- rated the curative power of glasses, and that some writers have been led greatly into error in ascribing nervous affections too exclusively to the influence of an uncorrected error of refraction. Certain it is, as I have before indicated, that there are many cases where quite a high degree of uncorrected liypermetropia does no harm to the subject of it.