A thesis on the cataract : with some remarks on the eye / by Arthur B. Stout.
- Arthur B. Stout
- Date:
- 1837
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A thesis on the cataract : with some remarks on the eye / by Arthur B. Stout. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.
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![affection ; and as its pathological condition is not concealed, he may observe the precise effect of remedial agents ; the time they prove of service : and when they cease to be of benefit. The preservation of sight, is secondary only to the preser- vation of life. Though the ophthalmic surgeon is not denied the fame derived from the second, his reputation is chiefly due to the first. And yet, so immediate and palpable is the change he may often effect for his patient, translating him as it were from darkness to light, that more eclat may accompany his career, than often the physician enjoys, who preserves life, but whose strength has been expended in a hidden course, where neither the intensity of disease, nor his skill could be adequately ap- preciated. Notwithstanding its advantages, this beautiful, and now, highly perfected branch of surgery is in this country neglected. In America, general surgery and medicine may be deemed to have attained as high a rank as in Europe; but in ophthalmic surgery, Germany and England are yet far in the advance. With the exception of a few distinguished persons, scarcely any are sufficiently acquainted with the diseases of the eye to have con- fidence in their own knowledge. In our colleges the subject is cursorily glanced at in the courses on general surgery, and the student becomes too much engrossed in them during his short term of study, to resort privately to the imported books on the .subject. From this indifference at the fountain head of learning, a general ignorance is allowed to exist throughout the profession. The surgeon, who while a student received no im- pulse, and was too deeply engrossed in general pathology to commence alone, having retired to his office, or the country, finds in his vis inertia; a sufficient argument to prevent a prose- cution of the study. In Germany and England, the universi- ties are endowed with a distinct professorship for ophthalmic surgery, while at Vienna the subject is divided into two branches, viz : a practical and genera] course of ophthalmology. Of these, 11»* - practical course consisted of five lectures weekly, and was of ten months duration. In all ibest; places](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21206326_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
