Selected cases of injury of the eyes / Henry Power.

  • Meneses, Henry Power.
Date:
[1880]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Selected cases of injury of the eyes / Henry Power. 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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    J SELECTED CASES OF INJURY OF THE EYES. HENRY POWEE. The followino- cases of accident that have occurred, during the last year, in the practice of the Hospital (some under the care of Mr Vernon, and some under my own), as well as some that have come under my care at St Bartholomew's Hospital, Chatham, have, for the most part, been selected with a view of illustj-ating the remarks made in my paper in the Eeports for 1874, to the effect that in all cases where there are good grounds for believing that a foreign body has entered and lodged in the vitreous, the proper treatment—in the working classes, at least, who cannot afford to remain idle—consists in the immediate or speedy removal of the globe. In such cases the vision of the injured eye is practically lost, and its enucleation spares the patient much suffering from the swelling of the lens and inflammatory tension of the globe, and much loss of time during the period of recovery, if it should, as in rare cases it does happen, that the foreign body becomes encysted; and lastly, all risk of sympathetic ophthalmia.* I am indebted to the Ophthalmic House-Surgeon, Mr Reid, jun., of Canterbury, for the abstracts of the cases from the notelDooks of the Hospital, and to Mr E. Cobb of St Bartliolomew's Hospital, Chatham for those from Chatham. ' * Other cases, on the other hand, show that recovery may take place from very severe injuries, if the patient be submitted to appropriate treatment imme- diately after the accident, providing no foreign body has lodged in the interior of the eye. The presence of a foreign body in the eye may in general be determined by consideration of the circumstances of the accident—such, for instance, as the nature of the work on which the patient is engaged; distance from a gun ; the existence of a wound traversing the cornea or sclerotic ; wounded or prolapsed iris, with indications of inflammation, after a few days traumatic cataract; and gener- ally more or less pain in the injured eye.