A treatise on the principal diseases of the eyes / by Antonio Scarpa ... ; illustrated by engravings ; translated from the Italian, with notes, by James Briggs.

  • Scarpa, Antonio, 1752-1832.
Date:
1818
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the principal diseases of the eyes / by Antonio Scarpa ... ; illustrated by engravings ; translated from the Italian, with notes, by James Briggs. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    the application of specific or venereal virus. In ad- dition to the sebaceous matter which is copiously secreted by these glands, a greater quantity than usual of thin mucus is poured out from the inter- nal membrane of the palpebral, which greatly contributes to increase the quantity of viscid curdy humour, which, in these cases, is diffused over the eye and eye-lids*. That the puriform humour which issues from the lachrymal sac on the application of pressure originates from these sources, is rendered evident by everting the affected eye-lids, particularly the inferior one, and comparing them with those of the sound side. For the internal membrane of the former is invariably found redder than natural, and presents a villous appearance, especially along the tarsus; the edge of the eye-lid is tumefied and dis- coloured with innumerable small varicose vessels ; the glands of Meibomius are more turgid and pro- jecting than in a natural state, and not unfre- quently, when examined with a powerful glass, appear to be slightly ulcerated. The villous structure, then, which the surface of the internal membrane of the palpebral assumes in these cases, becomes an organ, secreting a lar- ger quantity of fluid than usual, resembling viscid lymph, which, as before stated, being mixed with the sebaceous matter, copiously effused from the glands of Meibomius, constitutes the whole of that viscid fluid with which the eye-lids are imbued, and which is continually carried by the puncta la- * Rudolphus Vehrens has called this disease Epiphora Sebacea. See Ilaller's addenda to Boerhaave's Methodus Sludii Medici. B 2