Observations relative to the treatment by Sir William Adams, of the ophthalmic cases of the Army / [John Vetch].

  • Vetch, John, 1783-1835.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations relative to the treatment by Sir William Adams, of the ophthalmic cases of the Army / [John Vetch]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    1 must not omit to mention, amongst the difficulties which I had to surmount, in Ihe management of army cases, the practices used by men, for the purpose of retarding their recovery, and of resisting the means of cure* when they wished to obtain their discharge from the service. On the occasion of the cases selected by Sir W. Adams for the trial of his treatment, an official letter was sent by the Adjutant General, to the Commandant of the Depot, conveying a promise to the men so selected, that in the event of their recovery, under the treatment which Sir Win, Adams might employ, they would receive each a bounty of thirty-six guineas, or a free discharge and a pension. The moral obstacles being thus re¬ moved, the little success which seems to have followed, can only be imputed to the injudici¬ ous use of the operation; the occasional effects of which may be learned in the cases preceding those to which I confine my observations.* I * For instance, in the case of John Bickley, the inflammation, by which “ he nearly lost his eye,” is ascribed to the Walcheren Fever. In John Smith, the failure is said to be owing to the purgative quality of some cascarilla bark internally administered ; and the unfortunate issue of the case of John Miller, whom he states “ to have entirely lost one eye by the violent inflammation and fungus which resulted from the operation,” is ascribed to the same pusv gative quality in cascarilla bark.—vide page 31.