Official papers relating to operations performed by order of the directors of the Royal Hospital for Seamen ... for the purpose of ascertaining the general efficacy of the new modes of treatment practised by Mr. Adams, for the cure of the various species of cataract, and the Egyptian ophthalmia.

Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich

Date:: 1814

Credit: Official papers relating to operations performed by order of the directors of the Royal Hospital for Seamen ... for the purpose of ascertaining the general efficacy of the new modes of treatment practised by Mr. Adams, for the cure of the various species of cataract, and the Egyptian ophthalmia. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$The happy result whicli has altcnded such a combi- nation of practice, (by wliicli peculiar and appropriate Instruments and Modes of OpcratioFi have been adapted to each variety of the disease,) proves that those who pursue one beaten track, in ail cases, must necessarily fail in a very lai\^c proportion of them; and still further accounts for the bad success formerly attending the Op eration of Extraction on the Pensioners. I trust that it will not lx? coirsulered as irrelevant to the subject of the present communication to inform yon, that there are different modes of etfecting the cure of Cataract by the Absorbent Practice. My friend and preceptor, tlie late Mr. Saunders, ])ursucd a system dif- ferent from that whicli 1 have so warmly supported in this Letter. The operation which he preferred had been performed thirteen times during six months on one of the Pensioners (Edward Turner) witliout a removal of the disease. On one of my private patients the same operation had been performed. serewtecw times prior to my having been consulted, ten times on one Eye, and seven on the other, in the course of as many months, and with no belter success. In both instances I per- h'cted the cure by a single ojieration on each Eye ; so that, if these patients had originally been treated ac'- cording to my mode of practice, owe, or, at most, tzco Operations, would have efi’ected the complete removal of the Cataracts in the space of tive or six weeks. 'I'his difference in the two modes of operating, it is of great importance to rnvxclf distinctly to specify, otherwise, from its being generally known that I was the sole con- fidential Pupil and Assistant of the late Mr. Saunders in his operations for Cataract, among those who are now pursuing the ])rofession of an Oculist, it might be con- sidered by many, who have not seen ray Work on$