On the relative value of atropine and of mercury in the treatment of acute iritis / by T. Pridgin Teale, Junr.
- Thomas Pridgin Teale
- Date:
- [cbetween 1800 and 1899?]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On the relative value of atropine and of mercury in the treatment of acute iritis / by T. Pridgin Teale, Junr. 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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![These are excluded in order to simplify the inquiry, and restrict it to those acute forms, generally syphilitic, which occur in the previously healthy eye of the adult, and which, if neglected, rapidly endanger vision. For treating such cases many remedies have been and are still employed—venesection, leeches, blisters, opium, purging, belladonna, turpentine, and mercmy. Some surgeons use many of these in combination, others de- pend upon some single drug, others denounce particular drugs as injmious or useless. Some claim opium as a cure for all cases, with some belladonna is omnipotent, ^vith others mercury and blood-letting are indispensable. In this variety of practice where lies the tinith ? Can we arrive at it? I trust that the following records will be accepted as an instalment in this inquiry, as they have been carried out in order to test the relative value of atro- pine and mercury, to ascertain how much each remedy can do, and to determine if possible the most effectual way of employing them. The present table is more extensive than the one originally drawn out, and is in consequence defective in some of the particulars. [-S'ee Table.] The cases here recorded appear to me to justify the following conclusions and principles of treatment. 1. Iritis can generally be cured, quickly and perfectly, by atropine alone, or by atropiue and mercmy combined, without the aid of other remedies. How far opium, blis- ters, leeches, and venesection aid and accelerate progress I have not yet tested, wishing in the fu'st instance to deter- mine the value of the remedies under consideration, and then to make the results herein obtained a starting point for fui'thm- inquuy. 2. The presence or absence of syphilis does not affect the question of treatment. 3. Many, perhaps one-half, of the cases of iritis, xchether syphilitic or not, can be cm-ed by atropine alone.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21480060_0004.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
