The toxic amblyopias : their symptoms, varieties, pathology and treatment / by Casey A. Wood.
- Casey Albert Wood
- Date:
- [1892]
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The toxic amblyopias : their symptoms, varieties, pathology and treatment / by Casey A. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)
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![THE TOXIC AMBLYOPIAS; THEIR SYMPTOMS, VARIE- TIES, PATHOLOGY AND TREATMENT. By Casey A. Wood, C. M., M. D. PATHOLOGIST TO THE ILI.1K01S F.YK AND EAR INFIRMARY ; PROFKSSOROF OPHTHALMOLOGY IN THE CHICAGO POST-GRADUATE SCHOOL ; OCULIST AND ACRIST TO THE ALEXIAS HOSPITAL, ETC, CHICAGO. The absence of a complete English treatise on the above extremely important subject has tempted the writer to undertake the rather ambitious task of gathering together the scatter- ed observatioaa and records of work done in this department, both at home and abroad, and of presenting them in something like a coherent whole to American readers. He has been partly moved to do this in view of the fact that so far nobody has seen fit to translate either OhthofPs classical essay [UntertntcTiungen'vber den Einflwx dee chroniachen Alkoholiamua auf das menschliche Sehorgan,] or Galezowski's earlier monograph [Des Amblyopic* et des Amauroses Toxiqncs, 1878.] THE TERMS AMBLYOPIA AND AMAUROSIS—THEIR VARIETIES AND SYNONYMS. A DEFINITION OF TOXIC AMBLYOPIA. The employment of the term amblyopia (amblus, dull, and ops, the eye,) dates from the time of Hippocrates and has always been applied to those cases of deficient or weak vision not due to discoverable re- fractive error or to any sensible change in the ocular structures. In other words, it describes one symptom only of certain so-called func- tional eye diseases. But just as many functional affections of other parts of the body are now explained by the presence of organic altera- tions and have, in consequence, been removed from the former category, so Ave find that the discoveries ot the ophthalmoscope and microscope especially have greatly reduced the number of the amblyopias. The former instrument has revealed to us many lesions in the background of the eye hidden from the oculists of the pre-ophthalmoscopic era, while the latter has demonstrated the existence of pathological changes in the visual apparatus that were previously unsuspected or were mat- ters of conjecture only. In spite, however, of these facts and in the face of protests made by even early writers on ophthalmology the re- tention of the expression toxic amblyopia may be defended upon the ground that as yet no other name has been suggested or generally adopted that furnishes a more definite idea of the morbid alterations in the ocular structures brought about by certain toxic agents. Mackenzie (1) preferred the term amaurosis (amauros, dark), de- fining it to be an obscurity of vision due to diseases of some portion of the ocular nervous apparatus, a definition which would include and better describe some of the so-called amblyopias. Since his-day, how- ever, a different meaning has been attached to this term by most au- thorities who, speaking generally, regard amaurosis as an advanced de-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21641766_0_0015.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
