A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / by John Vetch.

  • John Vetch
Date:
1820
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / by John Vetch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/284 (page 16)
    Besides the beneficial effects of bleeding by leeches applied to the adjacent integuments, we have a still more advantageous command over ocular inflammation, by the direct application of the animal to the conjunctival lining of the inferior palpebrae, and, in many of the more obscure cases of amaurotic inflammation, I have derived very great assistance by applying them to the septum nasi. The orifices which they here make bleed most freely, and may be supposed to afford the speediest relief in any congestive state of the ethmoidal circulation; and, as they never occa¬ sion echymosis, the place is particularly eligi¬ ble where external appearances require to be consulted. There is much indiscriminate and empi¬ rical practice observable in the various appli¬ cations made use of as remedies for ophthalmic inflammation. The peculiarity of the organ seems to have sanctioned a departure from the strict rules for the treatment of local inflammation, without a sufficient consideration of the grounds on which such a deviation is authorized. The exclusion of light, so invariably enforced, is often more detrimental than useful. The eye becomes more irritable, and less manageable, when defended from the access of a moderate degree of light; its exclusion can only be permit-