A guide to the practical study of diseases of the eye : with an outline of their medical and operative treatment / by James Dixon.

  • Dixon, James, 1813-1896.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A guide to the practical study of diseases of the eye : with an outline of their medical and operative treatment / by James Dixon. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    still retained. The conjunctiva is everywhere red- dened, infiltrated^ and elevated above the level of the cornea, producing the appearance termed Chemosis, but usually looking more solid, and less watery, than in common Catarrhal Ophthalmia. If this chemosis has proceeded to its fullest extent, it overlaps and completely hides the margin of the cornea, and it may even protrude a little between the lids. The cornea, being overspread with thickened secretion, often appears, at first sight, to be really opaque or hazy ] and the surgeon must take pains carefully to wipe away this secretion before pronouncing a positive opinion as to the state of the cornea beneath it. But even then he can only speak very guardedly ; for the ulceration, which in this disease is so destructive, frequently begins at the extreme edge of the cornea, the very part hidden, as I have said, by the overlapping of the chemosis: and it may thus escape detection until it has perforated the entire thickness of the cornea, and caused prolapsus of the iris. In very severe cases of Purulent Ophthalmia, this ulceration rapidly advances in the form of a crescentic groove, becoming deeper and wider until it has isolated the central part of the cornea, which by that time has assumed a hazy or even opaque appearance. Then this central portion likewise yields to ulceration at one or more points, becomes softened, sloughy, and infiltrated with pus; it gives way, the iris bulges through the large opening thus formed, and, eventu-