Lectures on diseases of the eye / by Charles Bell Taylor.

  • Bell Taylor
Date:
1888
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Lectures on diseases of the eye / by Charles Bell Taylor. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    76/106 page 72
    return. At this juncture a young practitioner assisting the gentleman in attendance saw the patient, pronounced the case one of iritis, and applied atropine; all the symptoms were speedily aggravated, and although the pain, vomiting and general symptoms have passed away since the performance of iridectomy there is very little sight at present, and very little prospect of any to come. Last week, among my private patients was a gentleman sent to me with a letter from his medical attendant stating that he had been suffering from rheumatic iritis, which had been treated by atropine. The case was one of glaucoma, and I was obliged to operate immediately —a proceeding which the patient did not anticipate, and for which he was by no means prepared. I need not multiply in- stances ; enough has been said to show that the general practitioner who treats these cases of eye disease, unless exceptionally well informed, is beset by dangers—a Scylla and Charybdis, in fact: on the one hand, blindness from adhesions if atropine is neglected; on the other, glaucoma if it is em- ployed in unsuitable cases. What is to be done ? Speciahsts are not likely to make mistakes, but such cases do not come under the notice of specialists in the early stages, and in none is it more necessary to stop the beginning. Principiis obsta sero medicina paratur Cum mala per longas inraluere moras. It behoves us, therefore, to formulate some general rules for the guidance of the medical attendant who is so frequently responsible for these cases in the early stages. What shall they be ? Well, age is an important consideration. Young persons are not as a rule subject to glaucoma, although they not unfrequently suffer from iritis. I do not say young people never have glaucoma; indeed I have a case of cuj)ped disc
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image
    No text description is available for this image