A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / by William Mackenzie ; to which is prefixed an anatomical introduction explanatory of a horizontal section of the human eyeball by Thomas Wharton Jones.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / by William Mackenzie ; to which is prefixed an anatomical introduction explanatory of a horizontal section of the human eyeball by Thomas Wharton Jones. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    liiudable; the sound eye had Us motion, he could see with it distinctly, and seemed n other respects sensible when roused from his stupefaction. Soon after, he ,;ould bear to be moved from bed to a chair without fatigue ; the paralytic parts i.verc rubbed with vinegar and mustard, and he took valerian and castoreurn. A .cataplasm had been applied to assuage the inflammation and swelling of the eye. i l’liough several sloughs had been thrown off, and the suppuration was in large juautit)', yet tlie bulk of the parts did not diminish, nor the inflammation lessen, dll an astringent fotus of red rose-leaves and port-wine was applied, which so effectually braced up the relaxed parts, that the lids came to cover the deformity, iuk decoction of thj'mc and mustard was employed as a gargarism, to remove the Suppression of voice. As soon as he began visibly to mend, he had sometimes ■oud and sudden bursts of laughter, and at other times a long-continued silent ( simpering, a species of convulsion not unlike that called by the Greek physicians, k KunKOi avairiiH. When he attempted to walk, he had such gestures as accompany ^St \'itus’ dance, and seemed a ])erfect idiot, throwing eagerly forward one leg, : and dragging the other tremblingly after. At the time when Mr Geach drew u]) his account of the case, the patient’s 1 appetite wa-s natural, his sleep sound and refreshing, his hearing acute; he spoke, but drawled out his words rather indistinctly than articulately ; the paralytic arm i and thigh were again animated, and were recovering, but slowly, their power of flexion and extension. lie remembered nothing from the moment he had received the injury to the time he recovered and sat uj).>^^ The only comment which I think it necessary to make on this 1 interesting case is, that tlie instantaneousness with which the patient ■fell on receiving the injury, looks very like the effect of a wound of ' the brain ; while, on the other hand, the slowness of the pulse and ■ the hemiplegia, are more the symptoms of pressure from effused ■ blood. Even, however, on the supposition that the small sword had not penetrated through the ethmoid bone into the brain, the case becomes only the more remarkable; as, on that supposition, it would lead us to conclude, that a wound of the bones of the orbit, without perforation, might be attended by rupture of vessels within the cranium, and consequently with pressure on the brain, and paralysis. 5. I'oreign body remaining in the orbit. In all the instances which I have hitherto quoted, the weapon, whatever it was, was instantly withdrawn on the injury being inflicted; but we must be prepared to meet with cases where the foreign body, which has been driven through the walls of the orbit, still remains in the w'ound. In such cases, we instantly proceed to its removal; for there very soon follows such a degree of swelling as might prevent us from accomplishing the extraction without great difficulty, if at all; and ^vcre the weapon left, what could we expect but destructive inflam- mation of the eyeball, of the orbit, of the surrounding parts, and, among these, of the brain ? Case 21._A labourer thrust a long lath, with great violence, into the inner can us ot the left eye of another labourer. It broke off quite short, so that a I>iece, ne^ly t\vo inches and a half long, half an inch wide, and above a quarter ot an inch thick, remained in his head, and was so deeply buried that it could sc^cely be seen, or laid hold of. He rode with the piece of lath in him above a mile,to Barnet, where Mr Morse extracted it with difficulty; it sticking so hard, that others Imd been baffled in attempting to remove it. The man continued dan- gerously 11 for a long time; at last he recovered entirely, with the sight of the eye, and the use of its muscles ; but even after he seemed well, upon leaning for- ''anls, he felt great pam in his hcad/-^ In the days when javelins and arrows formed principal weapons