Remarks on the routine use of the ophthalmoscope in cerebral disease / by J. Hughlings Jackson.

  • Jackson, J. Hughlings (John Hughlings), 1835-1911.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the routine use of the ophthalmoscope in cerebral disease / by J. Hughlings Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

    25/32 (page 21)
    small shapeless white patches and scattered blotches of blood. The right optic disc was in about the same con- dition. There were no changes at the yellow spot. There was no albuminuria. He had had a slightly giddy seizure. I gave him large doses of iodide of potassium. The discs gradually cleared up; indeed, by June 26, the appearances would have seemed normal to a careless observer, but the edge of the disc was slightly indistinct; the arteries were traceable, and the veins were not tor- tuous. By direct examination, streaks were seen along some of the vessels. There was silvery-looking matter near the entrance of the vessels in small quantity ; there was also a little streaking of the adjacent retina. 1874.—He keeps well. The ophthalmoscopical changes to ordinary indirect examination are nil, and to direct examination they are very slight. At e/oery visit the patient could read the smallest test-types. I tried him with Jager's, Snellen's, Dixon's, and Williams's types, so that he did not read assisted by memory. In all the cases I have seen of recovery from optic neu- ritis the patients had taken large doses of iodide of potassium. Whether they would have recovered if left alone, that is, whether sight would have failed, I cannot tell. My belief is, however, that the iodide of potassium administered in the earliest stage of optic neuritis would gave many from blindness. It can, of course, do no good for the tumour (unless it be syphilitic), but it does, I think, for the inflammation of the optic nerves. When I say I have known optic neuritis appear and disappear, I can speak of cases in which, in a subsequent illness, the patients have died. The ophthalmologist never sees the pathological condition until sight is damaged. But the physician will, if he looks, often see it when there are no