Surgical papers / by Alex. Ogston.

  • Alexander Ogston
Date:
[1872?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Surgical papers / by Alex. Ogston. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/16 (page 11)
    adhesion. The knife is then withdrawn, and an iris forceps is introduced, which, seizing the iris near the pupil, and at a point corresponding to the adhesion, is made to drag the iris outwards towards the wound until the adhesion is seen to rupture. The forceps is then loosed from its hold on the iris by opening the blades, and withdrawn, the operation being thus completed. Dr. Passavant usually contents himself (p. 261) with the destruction of one adhesion at a time, and operates on another after an interval of a few days. He says —“ In more than fifty such operations I have not met with a single injurious result.” This paper of Dr. Passavant appeared so honestly written that a trial of his method was instituted in the next case that presented itself in the Aberdeen Hospital. In this, as in all the cases where I have tried it, the operation was followed by no bad result as regards the iris ; but, though the adhesion was seen to tear, the contraction of the pupil, which invariably followed on the. escape of the aqueous humour, allowed the two ends of the adhesion to lie so' close to each other that they united again in spite of the free use of atropine, and by the time the corneal wound was healed, the same state of matters existed as before the operation, only the adhesion was not so broad as previously. In both the above-mentioned operations the fault lies chiefly in their necessitating the escape of the aqueous humour, and so permitting the contraction of the pupil which follows to bring the ends of the separated adhesions so close that they reunite. They show, however, with what impunity the iris may be manipulated, and that iritis is not even a usual result of careful and well-judged interference. The following mode of operating on cases of limited