Practical suggestions for the treatment of lachrymal diseases / by C.R. Agnew.

  • Cornelius Rea Agnew
Date:
[1871]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical suggestions for the treatment of lachrymal diseases / by C.R. Agnew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the real cause of the accumulation in the tear-sac and the backing up of secretion. Some practitioners resort at once to a free incision of the stricture; others introduce a style made of leaden wire, fash¬ ioning its head so that it may lie concealed in the open canaliculus or bent over the edge of the lower lid near the commissure, and to be worn for weeks or months ; others again, by passing a full-sized probe every day or two, attempt to excite active congestion, and thus cause the thickened tissue to melt. I do not think that either of the three methods can be so implicitly relied upon as to become exclusive. And here we must introduce another phase of disease of the sac and nasal duct before we can attempt to lay down rules for the treatment of stricture. A neglected stillicidium and stricture leads sooner or later to progressive disease in the tear-sac and nasal duct. A comparatively limited inflam¬ mation increases and spreads until the sac is stretched by accumulated fluid, its walls altered in shape and character, and a more or less acute dacryocystitis induced. Under these circumstances something more must be done than attempts to pass the stricture — step by step with efforts to dilate the stricture must go measures for the cure of the catarrhal inflammation of the sac and duct. Much harm has been unintentionally done by those who have advised persons afflicted with incipient tear-passage disease not to have “their ‘weeping eye’ meddled with.” Such advice was not without justification in former days, when styles were in common use, but is certainly very censurable in the present state of our knowledge. Most of the incurable cases now met with in practice are due to neglect under the advice alluded to. Many a patient goes for years experiencing all the inconveniences and dangers of stillicidium who might have been cured in three or four days and with very little suffering. Many a patient, from the
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