The teaching of clinical ophthalmology / by C.O. Hawthorne.

  • Hawthorne, C. O. (Charles Oliver), 1858-1949.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The teaching of clinical ophthalmology / by C.O. Hawthorne. 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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    0 termed “ the principles of the ophthalmoscope.” The reply to this objection is, that in so far as such instruction is necessary, it is already provided in the classes of physics and physiology ; and, further, and on the strictly practical plane, it is to be noted that the examination of the fundus oculi and other parts of the eyeball, particularly in these days of the self-lit electric ophthalmoscope, is a matter of great simplicity, and needs practical training and opportunity rather than theoretical instruction. In the second place, it may be objected that among medical patients ocular changes as the result of general diseases are not frequent, and that, therefore, on the plan proposed, the student’s education would be scanty and incomplete. To this it may be answered that such conditions would be discovered more frequently were they looked for as a matter of routine. And again, in so far as this objection is well founded, it must mean that cases of nervous disease, of cardio-vascular disease, and of kidney disease, are detained in the ophthal- mic surgical clinic, when, manifestly, all such cases require the methods of investigation and treatment practised in the department of clinical medicine. Neither one objection nor the other has much valid foundation, and neither opposes any substantial difficulty to the arrangement of ophthalmological teaching on the plan here indicated. To present now in summary the scheme which I wish to suggest, instruction in ophthalmology for medical students should be conducted in three depart- ments— 1. Instruction in the optical relations of the eyeball and of the ophthalmos- cope in the classes of physics and physiology ; in the latter, also, the student’s attention would be directed to the relations which exist between the several parts of the visual field and the corresponding parts of the visual pathway. 2. Instruction in the systematic use of the ophthalmoscope, of the peri- meter, and of the methods of testing the musculature of the eyeballs, in the medical wards and out-patient department, where there should be a complete collection of ophthalmoscopic pictures illustrating the various diseased condi- tions of the fundus oculi. 3. Instruction in the estimation and correction of refractive errors, in operative methods, and in the diagnosis and treatment of external diseases of the eyeball and its related parts, in the department of ophthalmic surgery. Probably, as in other branches of practice, there would be a certain amount of overlapping in these several divisions, but this need not in any appreciable degree confuse the main lines of the proposal. This proposal, if adopted, would secure a combination by which, and as I venture to think, by which alone, the practitioner can be equipped to take from ophthalmology the full service it is capable of rendering in the wide field of medical and surgical practice.