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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    such positive evidence would aid in bringing convic¬ tion to the layman and to the ultra-conservative physi¬ cian, he would welcome any such demonstration of the optical abnormality of this patient’s eyes. Luckily it exists, and in a duplicate and mutually corroborative form. The first is the picture (reproduced herewith) of De Quincey, prefixed to the “ Life and Letters ” (by Page), made from the portrait by Mr. James Archer, R.S.A. In this, as any ophthalmologist, or even any observant layman, can see, the eyes are diver¬ gent. In sitting for a portrait in which the eyes are not directed (“ centered ”) upon the spectator, they naturally fall into a position of noninnervation, de¬ scribed as “ at rest,” “ fixed upon vacancy,” or “ look¬ ing at an infinite distance.” When the external ocular muscles are balanced (“ orthophoria,” “ parallelism,” etc.), the axes unite at a far point such as a star, the horizon, or at twenty feet distance. When there is imbalance of the muscles (“ heterophoria,” “ squint,” “ strabismus ”) there is no such uniting of the axes in a state of rest or noninnervation. Naturally in sitting for the painter De Quincey’s eyes took this position— literally one of rest, and it speaks much for the paint¬ er’s fine ability that he painted the truth as he found it. That truth was that De Quincey had what the Amer¬ ican oculist calls “ exophoria,” and the European names “insufficiency of the interni.” It is not squint or strabismus, at least not permanently that, but so far
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