An American text-book of diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat / edited by G.E. De Schweinitz and B. Alex. Randall.

Date:: 1899

Credit: An American text-book of diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat / edited by G.E. De Schweinitz and B. Alex. Randall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

419/1336 (page 403)

$The filaria sanguinis hominis in the human eye is of such rare occurrence that it requires only passing mention. Detachment of the Vitreous.—The vitreous is subject to degenera- tive changes which produce a shrinkage in its volume, thus removing it from direct contact with, and support of, the limiting membrane of the retina. As is readily seen, this condition is followed by detachment of the retina and loss of vision. The author has enucleated a painful atrophied eyeball in which this condition was beautifully illustrated. The vitreous had shrunken to half its size, and was closely enveloped by the retina, and consisted of bands of connective tissue stretching from the nerve-head to the posterior surface of the lens. This condition results from injury to the vitreous, fol- lowed by choroiditis and hemorrhage, or from extensive posterior staphyloma. The treatment is enucleation. Fatty Degeneration of the Vitreous.—Under this heading Dr. D'CEnch and Dr. Valk have reported cases the diagnostic features of which seem to resemble those described by Iwanoff and called by him fatty degene- ration of the stroma and cells of the vitreous. The ophthalmoscope furnishes a picture of numerous white, glistening spots very evenly distributed throughout the vitreous, and having slight motion when the eye is moved—not, however, an independent motion, but one seeming to depend upon the quivering or tremulousness of the normal vitreous when the eye is quickly moved in any particular direction. Iwanoff does not regard this condition as a pathologic change, but a quasi-physiologic state due to senile decay. The vision is slightly reduced, but not to an extent requiring special treatment, further than the correction of any existing error of refraction. Persistent Hyaloid Artery.—The hyaloid artery (an extension of the central artery of the retina) during fetal life passes from the optic nerve-head forward across the vitreous body, sometimes terminating in the vitreous and sometimes extending as far forward as the posterior surface of the lens. It$