Volume 1

Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould.

  • George M. Gould
Date:
1903-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Biographic clinics / by George M. Gould. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    will constitute one of the greatest advances in practical medicine that has ever been made. In the meantime the supercilious indifference and ignoring of the fact is one of the awful expenses of life and an opprobrium of medicine. We must not forget that in the days of De Quincey, Carlyle, etc., candles and rush-lights were the common sources of artificial light. When even our wonderful best modern lights are by no means equal to daylight, and are found taxing to weak and defective eyes, what must have been the degree of eye-strain in the days of candles ? At about 65 De Quincey’s eyes began troubling him. When accommodation had been entirely lost, the morbid reflex could not be shunted elsewhere, and must be returned to the eyes themselves. He had “ pain/’ which means, beyond question, inflammation of the ex¬ ternal or visible parts of the eye. (Cataract and retinal inflammations are painless.) Stopping reading by candle-light naturally relieved him. It returned worse than ever and affected the cornea (“ all but blind ”) and sulphate of zinc was the excellent remedy used. This conjunctival trouble continued to the end of his life, and in the last years most of the reading was done for him by others, reading aloud. As I have said, the trained oculist would not need direct evidence of ametropia, etc., to convince him of the subtle source of De Quincey’s affliction. But as
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