On the operation for the removal of cataract : as performed with a fine sewing needle through the cornea / by Arthur Jacob.

  • Arthur Jacob
Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the operation for the removal of cataract : as performed with a fine sewing needle through the cornea / by Arthur Jacob. 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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    what I consider, the best method of repairing one of the greatest losses which man sustains from disease or accident, undervalued, I am compelled to advocate its adoption, re- gardless of anything that may be said respecting my motives for so doing, or the means I employ to accomplish my object: “ Without taking part in the protracted discussion re- specting the comparative merits of the different operations for cataract, I shall recapitulate the arguments which have been urged in favour of that operation, to which I consider the needle, which I have to describe, as particularly appli- cable. The operation to which I allude is that of opening the texture of the lens, to produce its absorption by expos- ing it to the action of the aqueous humour.* * Surgery is indebted to Mr. Pott for the important fact, that cataract may be removed by absorption, if exposed to the contact of the aqueous humour by opening the capsule ; and doubly indebted to Mr. Saunders for establishing by re- peated operations the value of the suggestion. Attempts have lately been made to transfer the credit of this improve- ment to others. Mr. Guthrie first gives the merit to an old lady, contemporary with Theodore May erne, and then, with more reason, to Paul Barbette; but as the works of these authors have not been republished since 1690, and as the copies extant are not of frequent occurrence, it must be allowed that it is probable they were not plundered by Mr. Pott and Mr. Saunders. Frick, an American writer, attri- butes the improvement to Gleize, who himself actually gives Mr. Pott the credit of the discovery. Among other technical terms in ophthalmic surgery intro- duced from Germany, w'e have that of Keratonyxis applied to this operation generally, although it can have reference to the anterior operation only; and with the word, we have the claim of Dr. Buckhorn to the anterior operation, which Eng- lish surgeons have been practising for nearly twenty years at the suggestion of Mr. Saunders, and this on the grounds that Dr. Buckhorn published an Inaugural Dissertation on the subject in 1806.