Diseases and injuries of the eye : their medical and surgical treatment / by George Lawson.

  • George Lawson
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Diseases and injuries of the eye : their medical and surgical treatment / by George Lawson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    349/422 (page 329)
    HEEPES FEONTALIS. ' eye often becomes affected, and generally at abont the time when the vesicles are beginning to fade. The in- flammation may be only conjunctival, bnt more frequently there is some ulceration of the cornea with slight iritis. The duration of the disease is from ten to twelve days, but the inflammation of the eye which it has excited may last for many weeks, and be the source of much anxiety and trou.ble. The pain is, as a rule, excessive and neuralgic; it is over the brow and forehead, along the inner and upper edge of the orbit, and down the inside of I the nose, and occasionally patients complain of very severe pain in the lobe of the ears. The points of diagnosis between herpes frontalis and erysipelas have been weU laid down by Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. He says: Herpes frontaUs is always limited to one side, never transgresses the median line of the forehead and nose. It never affects the cheek, I although there may be some sympathetic oedema of this part (oedema of contiguity). There is less genera] swelling of the skin than in erysipelas, and in some cases very little. The vesicles of herpes are smaller, more defined, more numerous, and altogether much more conspicuous and pronounced than are the buUge of erysipelas. There is much more pain and much less constitutional distur- bance in herpes than in erysipelas. The strictly unilateral character of the one contrasted with the irregular location of the other is, however, the most reliable feature for the purpose of ready diagnosis.* Treatment.—The objects to be accomplished during the progress of the disease are to relieve the heat and irrita- tion of the affected parts, to give ease to the neuralgic pains, and to procure sleep. A fold of lint wet with the lotio zinci oxydi (F. 46), or with the lotio conii cum opio (P. 37), may be laid over the surface, and moistened as often as it becomes hot or dry. Opium should be admi- nistered internally, either in small repeated doses, or in one full dose sufficient to procure sleep at bedtime. The sub- cutaneous injection of morphia (F. 24) is of great service, and may be given in doses of from gr. ^ to gr. |, and repeated if the sufi'ering is severe. The bowels should be acted on by some mild purgative, and quinine in doses of from gr. 1 to gr. 3, ordered two or three times a day. * Koyal London Ophthalmic Hospital Eeports, vol. v. p. 192.