On the mechanical restoration of the apparatus of vision / by Dr. Debout.

  • Debout, Dr. (Emile)
Date:
[1863?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the mechanical restoration of the apparatus of vision / by Dr. Debout. 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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    still pursues his work with the most laudable zeal, and purposes soon, we understand, to publish a work on Restorative Surgery. The article which we now publish is a new chapter of his studies; and a portion of it has already appeared in the journal of which Dr. Debout is himself the editor. The author dwells only on the facts that have come under his own observation, and he asks us to produce this second fragment of his work in order to make an appeal to the surgeons of our country. “ If,” he says, “ the French manufacturers have almost a monopoly of the construction of mechanical apparatus, there are also, in other countries, ingenious artists who have contributed effectively to the progress of prothesis; and surgeons who have witnessed their efforts should come forward to give us an account of their results;” and our colleague will gladly avail himself of any observations which will enable him to complete his work.—Ed.] Or the senses having their seat in the face, there is not one whose deformities require more imperatively the intervention of restorative surgery than the apparatus of vision. The integrity of the accessory parts of these organs is of the utmost importance: thus, the eye- lids in no way contribute to the functions of sight, yet their destruction soon entails the loss of the ocular globe. a The study of the lesions of this apparatus furnishes us with many examples of the application of prothesis, either devoted exclusively to the improvement of vision, as spectacles, or, to the restoration of a destroyed organ, as in the use of artificial eyes. In fact, there are none of the malformations of the eye—not even those which do not interfere with vision, such as the hypertrophy of the covering of the inner angle, to which the name of epicanthus has been given— which do not demand the intervention of art. This simple enumeration, incomplete as it is, suffices to show the extent and variety of aid required; but, at present, we shall limit our observations to the lesions which require the aid of mechanical apparatus. It is the artificial eye, with the services it is capable of rendering, that shall be particularly considered in this article. * The ancients were well aware of this fact. Thus, the Carthaginians, in their resentment towards Regulus, believed they could not make him submit to a more horrible punishment than the removal of his eyelids. The history of the Crusades also shows us the cruel spectacle of Christians from whom their conquerors removed their eyelids, and who lost, consequently, not only their sight, but their eyes themselves.