A manual of surgery founded upon the principles and practice lately taught by Astley Cooper and Joseph Henry Green / ed. by Thomas Castle.

  • Castle, Thomas, 1804?-1840?
Date:
1839
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of surgery founded upon the principles and practice lately taught by Astley Cooper and Joseph Henry Green / ed. by Thomas Castle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    consists in making a section, with a cutting needle, through the iris, which, by the elasticity of its fibres, separates its edges, and thus makes a passage for the rays of light. There are three modes of performing this operation. First.-—By a simple incision of the iris, technically called corotomia; but this operation was seldom resorted to. Secondly .-—where a portion of the iris was cut away, which operation was called corectomia : and thirdly.-—where the iris was turned away from its attachment to the ciliary ligament, technically called coredialysis. FUNGUS HJEMATODES OF THE EYE. 48. This malignant fungus is a disease which soon proves fatal, unless an operation be early performed ; even the chance of success is extremely doubtful. No age appears exempt from it ; but it more frequently attacks the young, and a large portion of the cases occur before twelve years of age. On looking into the eye at the commencement of the complaint, you see opposite to the pupil, and deeply seated, an appearance like a mirror, re- sembling an opacity of the lens, from which it is difficult to distinguish it. If you watch the progress of the disease, you will see that this appearance en- larges into a prominence, proceeding from the bottom of the eye towards the cornea, and as it reaches the lens, you must be the more on your guard, that you do not mistake it for cataract. There is one appearance, however, at this stage, by which you may distinguish the one from the other; upon the opaque substance, or the retina, of which its covering consists, branches of the arteria centralis retinae may be seen ramifying. The other symptoms are loss of vision, and the iris remaining iihmovable. As the prominence enlarges, the iris becomes protruded, and the cornea distended. The con- junctiva becomes inflamed, the eyelids vascular, and in a diseased state ; and, in process of time, the cornea sloughs, an opening is formed, and a discharge of a ropy mucus first takes place. The fungus does not always protrude through the cornea, but sometimes through the sclerotic, and then it has a purple livid hue, and is covered by the conjunctiva. As it increases in size, it assumes a dark red colour, its surface is unequal and irregular, it bleeds at the slightest touch, the parts slough, and then there is a fetid sanious discharge. 49. Dunng the progress of fungous hsematodes of the