The modern operations for cataract : being the Lettsomian lectures for 1884 / by R. Brudenell Carter.

  • Robert Brudenell Carter
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The modern operations for cataract : being the Lettsomian lectures for 1884 / by R. Brudenell Carter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in short, where the iris was most 'exposed to suffer bruising or compression during the exit of the lens. In cases of the other class, the initial phenomenon was necrosis of the cornea, produced by its extensive sever- ance from the sources of its nutrition. There were, therefore, two possibilities to combat, the plastic inflam- mation, which, in the recently wounded eye, always led on to suppuration ; and the direct necrosis which pro- duced the same effect. As soon as Von Graefe's results were made known, and before he himself made any attempt to turn them to profitable account, Dr. Mooren, then of Crefeld, suggested that the risks of iritis from contusion might be diminished by the performance of iridectomy as a preliminary operation, to be followed by extraction after an interval of time ; and he pro- ceeded to put his suggestion into practice. His results were so excellent, that the pamphlet in which he pub- lished them was received, in Germany, with very general incredulity ; insomuch that the author, referring to this incredulity in a second edition, made it a reason for publishing the name and address of every patient upon whom he had operated by his method, so that all who pleased might go and verify his statements. I may perhaps remark, in passing, that both the incredulity, and the means adopted to combat it, seem to me to indicate that the standard of scientific veracity is less high in certain foreign countries than among ourselves, and in some measure to justify the doubts which I have expressed concerning the trustworthiness of statistics with which the profession and the public have from time to time been favoured. However this may be, it soon became manifest, not only that Mooren had succeeded in diminishing the liability to iritis after extraction, but