Hydrophthalmos : a bibliographic, clinical and pathologic study / by Walter L. Pyle.

  • Walter L. Pyle
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hydrophthalmos : a bibliographic, clinical and pathologic study / by Walter L. Pyle. 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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    Dropsy of the eye is too colloquial. Buphthalmos and its English equivalent “ox-eye” have been ex- tensively employed, but they are not scientific, and, by many lexicographers, are used only to express that condition in which the eyeball is so distended as to prevent closure of the lids. Megalophthalmos simply means large eye. Megalocornea, keratoglobus, cornea globosa and their English equivalent, globose cornea, refer only to the state of the cornea. In view of the difference from glaucoma in pathologic anatomy, and the denial of the etiologic similarity by some observers, glaucoma congenitum, congenital glaucoma, infantile glaucoma and infantile secondary glaucoma will always excite antagonism. Hydrophthalmos means increase of the fluid con- tents of the eyeball, irrespective of the diverse con- sequences thereof. It would be better perhaps to use a word indicating uniform expansion of the ocular tunics, but there is no such word in current use, and hydrophthalmos has the prestige of being the original term, the one most commonly used at present, and, in addition, one that permits of infinite subdivision. History.—Hydrophthalmos has been recognized as a distinct affection for many years. There are numerous references to it in the medical literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as a glance at the bibliography will show. However, it is very likely that some of the older cases reported as hy- drophthalmos were really instances of large anterior staphyloma, exophthalmos, intraocular tumor, etc. Borellus5 mentioned hydrophthalmos, and advised treatment by blistering the nape of the neck and using a collyrium of white vitriol. Beyer,4 in 1774, reported a curious case, and in 1775, Grygerus19 dis- cussed the subject. In 1776, Terras85 called attention to the value of paracentesis in the treatment, and Mauchart,27 Marchan,26 Heister,20 and an author in the Ephemerides,11 made similar observations. In the Acta Naturce Ctiriosorum, Vol. VIII, obs. 44, there is mention of a recurrent case (likely secondary glau- coma). Brandis6 reported the occurrence of the dis- ease in scrofulous patients. Cheston9 described a fatal case with caries of the orbit. Gendron17 men-
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