Glaucoma, and its cure by iridectomy : being four lectures delivered at the Middlesex Hospital / by J. Soelberg Wells.

  • Wells, J. Soelberg (John Soelberg), -1879
Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Glaucoma, and its cure by iridectomy : being four lectures delivered at the Middlesex Hospital / by J. Soelberg Wells. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nearly entirely, lost; that condition, in short, to which onr forefathers confined the term glaucoma. The modern school of ophthalmology, however, no longer limits the name glaucoma to this last hopeless condition, but em- braces in it all the varieties of the disease from their commencement, which lead to this last stage. In regard- ing the different varieties of glaucoma from a clinical point of view, we are particularly struck by the fact, that one class of cases is distinguished from the commencement by more or less marked inflammatory symptoms; whilst another appears, in the commencement at least, to be free from inflammation, although in its course inflammatory symptoms, even of an acute kind, generally make their appearance. We may, therefore, divide cases of glaucoma into two principal classes :— I. Cases attended with inflammatory symptoms. II. Cases in which there are apparently no inflammatory symptoms present. Glaucoma may exist as a primary disease, or may complicate a previously existing affection. We find that the different varieties of glaucoma show certain common characteristics, and we may generally recognise the four following stages :— 1. A premonitary stage (glaucoma imminens, incipiens, of von Graefe); 2. A stage in which the glaucoma is fully developed (glaucoma evolutum, confirmatum, von Graefe); 3. A stage in which quantitative perception of light has been completely lost for some time (glaucoma abso- lutum, consummatum, von Graefe); 4. A stage in which the eye undergoes glaucomatous degeneration (von Graefe). I. Inflammatory Glaucoma. We distinguish two principal forms of inflammatory glaucoma, the acute and the chronic. As it is of consequence in the examination of cases of glaucoma, that the observer should know how to estimate
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