A report of the cases attended at the Birmingham Eye Infirmary, during the year 1838 and 1839 / by Richard Middlemore, Esq.

  • Richard Middlemore
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report of the cases attended at the Birmingham Eye Infirmary, during the year 1838 and 1839 / by Richard Middlemore, Esq. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    was almost entirely obliterated, and the iris exten- sively adherent to the upper margin of the staphy- loma. The mode of treatment employed for the cure of the staphyloma consisted in the repeated tapping of the part by means of a fine iris-knife ; it being evident that excision or any similar mode of cure would have unfitted the eye for the performance of an operation for artificial pupil, which presented the only chance of restoring to the patient any degree of vision. On the cure of the staj)hyloma, the patient, being still blind, was persuaded to go to the Bristol Asylum, where he was taught to make baskets. He remained there until June, 1839, when he returned to Birmingham, and called upon me, expressing a strong wish to have an operation performed. On this occasion he was led to my house by a little child, being unable to find his way, without assistance, about the streets of the town in which he had lived many years. My experienced colleagues, Mr. Ledsam and Mr. Crompton, who examined the case with me, agreed that it was desirable to give the patient the chances of benefit an operation aflforded.* Operaiion.—August 6th, 1839. Present, Mr. Jones and Mr. Clarke.—Raising the upper lid without pressing upon the eye-ball, I made a small section of the cornea at its superior part, through which I introduced a fine iris hook, and very cautiously » It will be borne in mind that more than one-half of the cornea, at its lower part, was densely opaque, the pupil nearly obliterated the ins extensively adherent to the opaque cornea; but, from the slight glance of an exceedingly minute pupil which it was just possible to obtain, by looking downwards as the patient sat on a low seat, it was ascertained that the lens and its capsule were transparent.
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