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.
44/164 page 28
![that she had any disease affecting a vital organ. Nevertheless, he pulse and countenance bespoke a system in which the powers of life from some cause or other, were considerably depressed, and Mi Dixon concurred with me in recommending a strictly tonic course o treatment, comprising steel and quinine, with such modifications ii diet, place of abode, and mode of life, as her situation appeared t< render desirable. Under this plan, which has been continued up t< the present time, a steady improvement has taken place in the condi tion of the corneas. The haze is clearing away in the most gradua manner, and without any unnatural vascularity of the part or neigh bourhood, and her looks are much improved in every respect, cannot help regarding this affection as simply the result of an im pairment of the nutritive process in the whole body, showing itself i) a special manner in this texture of feeble power.* Reparative process in the cornea.—The cornea when healthy i readily repaired after injury ; punctures and incisions being followe( in general by speedy reunion of the divided parts, without suppura tion or sloughing. The adhesive process is here presented to us i its simplest form, for it takes place in a structure which contains m blood-vessels, and therefore where none have been divided. But i we bear in mind that all tissues have a proper life of their own, o which their several properties and actions are the necessary manifesta tions, and that the blood-vessels are but ministerial to the proper lif< of the tissues they supply, by serving as the medium through whicl the materials essential to life are brought within their reach, and wha is rejected by them is carried away, we shall readily understand hov it is that a tissue which, like the cornea, originally grew, and has iti ordinary life sustained without the presence of interstitial vessels, ma] be also repaired and renewed without them within certain limits. Foi the reparative actions, in their natural form, are nothing more thai those of growth and nutrition, modified by the new conditions occa sioned by external accident, and tending constantly to a removal o those new conditions, and the restoration of the normal state. If we puncture or incise the cornea, the first effect is a change wrought in the natural actions of nutrition then existing in tin * This patient, at the end of three months, had recovered the transparenc; of the cornese, and was much improved in health. She has, however, on tw< subsequent occasions, had relapses, from the last of which she is now recovering but with the right cornea considerably, and I fear permanently, clouded.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21043140_0044.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
