Eyestrain (commonly called asthenopia) / by Ernest Clarke.

  • Clarke, Ernest, 1857-1932.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Eyestrain (commonly called asthenopia) / by Ernest Clarke. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/184 (page 5)
    obliqui, as performed and recommended by Guerin, Cunier, Adams and Bonnet. Rightly did Bonders say that this was a sad era in ophthalmic surgery, illustrating well that the gravest errors in treatment are mostly due to ignorance of the cause and pathology of a disease. Mackenzie took such an alarming view of the prognosis of asthenopia that he says :— In many cases it is our duty to declare the disease incurable, and to explain to the patient and his friends that all that can be done for it, is as much as possible to save the sight. If the patient is a young lad bound apprentice to a sedentary trade ... we must advise him to turn shop-keeper, or to apply himself to country work ; if a female occupied constantly in sewing, to engage in household affairs or any other healthy active employment. Many a poor man have I told to give up his sedentary trade, and drive a horse and cart ; while to those in better circumstances, and not far advanced in life, I have recommended emigration, telling them that though they never could employ their eyes advantageously in reading and writing, they might see sufficiently to follow the pastoral pursuits of an Australian colonist.' At.last, in 1858, Bonders of Utrecht came to the rescue, and pointed out that the cause of asthenopia was hy- permetropia,^ and in his classical treatise on refraction published a few years later, he propounded his theory at considerable length. He says: I have already asserted that hypermetropia is usually at the bottom of asthenopia. The truth of this assertion has been doubted. I now go a step further, and venture to maintain that in the pure form of asthenopia, hypermetropia is scarcely ever wanting.' About the same time V. Graefe drew attention to the strain of the internal recti, which he called asthenopia ' Op. cit.y p. 25. ' Nederlandsch Tijdschrift voor Geneesk, p. 473. The Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye, New Sydenham Society, 1864, p. 261.