Loss of sight from disuse of the eye (amblyopia ex anopsia) / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Loss of sight from disuse of the eye (amblyopia ex anopsia) / by D.B. St. John Roosa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    1904, with his vision in the formerly amblyopic eye, equal to f$, with an appropriate glass, and his corneal astigmatism reduced to 4 D instead of 5 D, as in the beginning. The fixation in the right eye was now central and steady. Vision in tire left eye remained as before, ?<&, but he prefers and wears the glass for the correction and improvement of the sight, over the eye, although double vision can be brought out, and probably exists, under certain con- ditions, but evidently it does not annoy the patient, who is perfectly content with his condition. Remarks.—The interest of this case is twofold: first, that a man more than forty years old, after having had an amblyopic eye ever since his early youth, could develop his eyesight to very nearly normal visual power. Second, that the vision for fine type was improved some months before that for infinity,—letters at twenty feet, was improved at all. The case also shows, in a most interesting way, not only the possibility of relief in such cases, where the good eye is so much injured as to cause a great impairment of sight, but, also, it demonstrates, if any demonstration were needed, the practicability and importance of the treatment first thoroughly carried on by Javal, and widely taught by him, of exercise of an amblyopic eye, for the purpose of re- moving what turns out to be functional amblyopia. There certainly are cases where the amblyopia pre- cedes the strabismus, as in membranous cataract, but these are not, as I have already indicated, cases of amblyopia from disuse, but from obscuration, and have no place in this category, nor in this discussion. The cases of a very high degree of astigmatism in one eye, while the other has no defect, are, however, strictly analogous. In some of them it is impossible,