An essay on the malformations and congenital diseases of the organs of sight / by W.R. Wilde.

  • Wilde, W. R. (William Robert), 1815-1876.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the malformations and congenital diseases of the organs of sight / by W.R. Wilde. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    occurred m both eyes ; the eyelashes have not been formed and m the situation of the intertarsal slit there was a narrow sulcus, lined by a delicate vascular portion of skin, which ad- mitted of extension but not of absolute separation. In one oi these cases the eyeball appeared to be very imperfectly developed, for the lids were scarcely at all convex externally, neither was there any proper globe to be felt through them. In two other examples of this malformation, the eyeball ap- peared to be adequately developed, but to be firmly adhe- rent to the globe,* inasmuch as the very limited movements of which it was susceptible, occasioned an evident dragging of the eyehd. Beer mentions his having operated on cases of congenital anchyloblepharon, but it seems more than proba- ble, that in at least one of the cases recorded by Mr. Mid- dlemore, there were no globes at all. Mr. Travers says he saw a remarkable instance of co-ad- hesion of the tarsi in a full-grown boy, whose eye was found perfect after the division, though he had been thus blind from his infancy. It is similar to the co-adhesion of the nymphseor labia pudendi, and the closed anus in new-born infants; from which it would appear that he considered it congenital. St. Yves, Benedict,Wenzel, and many others, mention congenital anchyloblepharon; and record cases that occurred in their practice. I have never, however, met an instance myself. Dr. Hocken of London narrates a curious and unique case of partial anchyloblepharon in an infant, then about three months old, in which a small filamentary portion of integu- ment, occupying the site of the junction of the outer with the middle third of the left eyelids, produced this unnatural adhesion of their edges. It was not thicker than a common sewing thread, and in all other respects the eyes were per- fectly healthy and normal. Himly thinks this concretion or adhesion of the margin of the lids arises, as he says, from too great sharpness of the A misprint, we presume, for palpebra.