A probationary surgical essay on cataract : submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, ... / by James Keith.

  • Keith, James, 1783-1863.
Date:
September 1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A probationary surgical essay on cataract : submitted ... to the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, ... / by James Keith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sponds to the pupil, previous to removing the lens ta the bottom of the eye *. But it is also probable that cases, in which the lens and capsule are both opake, do occur, in which a dis¬ union, either the cause or an effect of the morbid changes produced in them, has taken place between the Usual natural connections of the capsule of the lens; we cannot otherwise readily account for these cases, when, immediately on the incision of the cornea, in the opera¬ tion for extraction, the lens inclosed in its opake cap¬ sule was expelled from the eye, without any artificial pressure, and without being followed by any portion of the vitreous humour, and for those dissections, where the lens, with its capsule, has been found unchanged at the bottom of the eye, many years subsequent to the opera¬ tion of depression f. As it is now well ascertained, that the lens, deprived of its capsule, and lodged in the vitreous humour, is gradually absorbed, and in process of time altogether disappears, so the idea that formerly was entertained of the state of ripeness, or fitness of the Cataract, necessary for its successful removal, are now discovered to be with¬ out foundation. For in milky and soft Cataracts, which were formerly considered as conditions of the disease unfavourable for operation, the cure may be undertaken with every reasonable prospect of success. For if, on the introduction of the needle into the capsule, the lens is * Scarpa Maladies des Yeux. f Jarsin, p. 167.