Sympathetic ophthalmia : its symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment : with illustrative cases / by George Lawson.

  • George Lawson
Date:
1865
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sympathetic ophthalmia : its symptoms, diagnosis, and treatment : with illustrative cases / by George Lawson. 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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    a position to receive most favourably the influence of any other treatment which may be adopted. How- ever well the patient may progress, the order to rest the eyes and abstain from work should not be rescinded for at least from six to eight months. The disease is very recurrent in its nature, and the too soon exposing the eye to the stimulus of strong light will increase the chances of relapse. In some cases I have seen decided benefit from a moderate inunction of mercury, but quinine in one or two-grain doses must be given at the same time. Local applications.—Belladonna in one form or another affords the most grateful application to the eyes. A solution of atropine, of the strength of one grain to the ounce, should be dropped into the eye three or four times a day. It has a double effect: it is a direct and very excellent sedative to the eye, allays irritability and relieves pain, and sometimes it seems to exert almost a specific action on the disease; but in addition to this it dilates the pupil, and so helps to destroy recent adhesions, and by maintaining the dilatation tends to prevent the formation of a closed and contracted pupil. The frequent use of a bella- donna fomentation also gives great comfort. At one time I used to think that if an iridectomy was performed on the affected eye at an early stage of the disease, it helped to quiet it, and by the re- moval of a piece of iris it established an artificial pupil, and exposed a portion of transparent lens, if lymph had already been effused on the lens-capsule
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