Lectures on the parts concerned in the operations on the eye, and on the structure of the retina : delivered at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, June 1847 : to which are added, a paper on the vitreous humor; and also a few cases of ophthalmic disease / by William Bowman.
- Sir William Bowman, 1st Baronet
- Date:
- 1849
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Lectures on the parts concerned in the operations on the eye, and on the structure of the retina : delivered at the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, June 1847 : to which are added, a paper on the vitreous humor; and also a few cases of ophthalmic disease / by William Bowman. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![houses, the glare of the sea, and the additional glare of the sun. By degrees it became difficult for me to identify a friend across the street, or even the joint of meat which was necessary to be carved. No measure was taken by me to remedy the evil; being unaccustomed to illness generally for 55 years, I trusted to my constitution and the next winter, to bring matters right again. In October of that year (1848) a cold seemed to strike the left eye more particu- larly ; the pupil felt .tender to a fearful degree, and a great deal of redness was manifested in the comer farthest from the nostril. I shut the eye and read with the other, not yet resorting to advice. In about ten days the pupil lost part of its brightness, looked irregularly shaped, and, upon trying the vision, for the first time, I found it was almost gone; tliere was a mist before me, though I could just see the ground under my feet with it. I then became seriously alarmed. The next morning intense pain commenced, not in the head, but in the back of the eye, which lasted about twenty-four hours. Leeches having been applied, and all other remedies which the medical attendant deemed best, at the end of a month or so, the inflammation, and the congestion which followed, appeared greatly overcome. I was allowed to go out for a walk : the sight, however, continued defective ; it was in my power to see across a room, and to discover a picture hanging on the wall at the other side, but not to distinguish the design. I could see also the surface of a table, but no small object upon it. I then paid a visit to England to obtain first-rate advice; and under the care of the oculist, and from the change of ah-, my strength improved very fast indeed; but there was no move for the better in the eye, nor any for the worse: the feeling to myself was constantly that of something sticking in it. Having incautiously exposed myself to the wet while walking, a second inflam- mation came on, which was pronounced to be rheumatism—dreadful pain for forty-eight hours; the eye-ball, however, did not become so very tender in this case; the evil seemed to dwell more in the socket, extending at times (and for the first time) up the nerves of the forehead. While under treatment for this new enemy, the sight of the eye failed altogether, a cataract having been formed at the end of a fortnight from the commencement of this second attack. It is right, perhaps, to mention that I could distinctly perceive the fire out of one corner of the eye for some time after its formation 16th March, 1849.] Case U.—Loosening of the suspensory ligament of the lens in both eyes. Dis- location of one of the lenses into the anterior chamber. Singular mobility of the other, by which it falls out of the axis of vision in certain positions of the head, but yet retains its transparency. The following very remarkable, and, in some respects, I believe, unique case, is still to be seen at the hospital, and has excited the interest of many medical men:—](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21043140_0151.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
