Experimental salicyclic acid-amblyopia / by G. E. de Schweinitz.

  • De Schweinitz, G. E. (George Edmund), 1858-1938.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Experimental salicyclic acid-amblyopia / by G. E. de Schweinitz. 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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    EXPERIMENTAL SALICYLIC ACID-AMBLYOPIA. By G. E. de SCHWEINITZ, M.D., OF PHILADELPHIA, PENN. It is not unnatural, owing to the physiological action of salicylic acid and the salicylates and the well-known symp- toms which they produce in full doses — symptoms resembling in many particulars those which we know under the general name of cinchonism — that visual disturbances analogous to those produced by toxic doses of quinine should be the result of the ingestion of large quantities of these drugs. Thus Reiss,* in his research on the effects of salicylate of sodium on healthy people, noted tinnitus aurium and disturb- ance of vision after five-gramme doses. The first case of importance, however, is the one reported by E. Gatti f: A sixteen-year-old, robust peasant girl was given, on account of articular rheumatism, eight grammes of salicylate of soda, divided into ten doses, one dose to be taken hourly. After receiving the last dose she fell asleep, and awoke entirely blind, even quantitative light perception being lacking. The sensibility of the cornea and the sclera was normal ; there was well-marked mydriasis; the media were clear; there was a light gray reflex from the retina depending upon the decided choroidal pigment. The optic papilla was normal, its borders sharply marked, and the retinal veins well filled — conditions which obtained after the restoration of vision. Other symptoms were: Dullness of hearing, weak heart sounds, small pulse, and slight perspiration. The urine was free from albumen and sugar. Ten hours later the patient could count fingers, and twenty-four hours after the blindness originally began vision was restored. Mydriasis persisted for several days. The amaurosis was explained by a direct action of the salicylate of soda upon the retina and optic nerve. * Berl. klin. Wochenschr., Nr. 50, 1875. + Abstract in Nagel's Jahrsbericht f. Ophtalmologie, Vol. xi, p. 243, 1880.