Iridectomy and division of the ciliary muscle compared / by H.R. De Ricci.

  • De Ricci, H.R.
Date:
[1864]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Iridectomy and division of the ciliary muscle compared / by H.R. De Ricci. 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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    apparently from an attack of glaucoma. On her first visit to me it was in a state of extreme congestion and lacrymation; and the intra-ocular pain was of the severest kind. I at once told her that her case was not one of neuralgia, but of inflammation of the internal structures of the eye; and I proceeded to treat it according to the usual method. At first I seemed to obtain some slight advantage; the pains somewhat diminished; and on my second visit I found the patient very much pleased at having obtained some sleep on the previous night; .but the relief she experienced was, unfortunately, but of short duration. The intra-ocular pain returned with all its former violence; and in less than a week she was suffering as much as when she first applied to me. The case was evidently a serious one; and as ophthalmic surgery was not a branch that I specially practised, I proposed to this lady that I should consult with Dr. Hildige on her case. We met the following day; and, after a careful examination, he pronounced it to be a case of sub-acute glaucomatic inflammation; and mentioned to me, privately, that iridectomy would offer the only chance of relieving her present symptoms, and, at the same time, save from destruction the.^other eye, which was already beginning to suffer sympathetically. ' We.-ordered some cooling anodyne lotion; and on the following day, on her again calling on me to tell me that the eye-water had done her no good, and that she had passed another night of agony, I communicated to her Dr. Hildige’s opinion, backing it with my recommendation to submit to the operation without delay, which was accordingly performed on the following day—a small portion of the upper part of the iris being excised by Dr. Hildige. This patient was extremely agitated during the performance of the operation; and it required all the skill and dexterity of the operator to bring it to a satisfactory termination. Notwithstanding her restlessness and her excitement, the result was most satisfactory. The pain in the eyeball, which, for so many weeks previously had never left her for a moment, had considerably abated by the following morning; and twenty-four hours after the iridectomy this lady expressed to me that she was free from all the old pain in the eye, and it was well worth under- going all the anxiety and pain of the operation to obtain the amount of comfort she was then enjoying. This patient continued very satisfactorily for a fortnight, when intra-ocular hemorrhage set in, which was arrested, after some hours, by the application of iced lotions—the hemorrhage, however, caused no return of the
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