Epidemic ophthalmia : its symptoms, diagnosis, and management, with papers upon allied subjects / by Sydney Stephenson.

  • Stephenson, Sydney, 1862-1923.
Date:
1895
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemic ophthalmia : its symptoms, diagnosis, and management, with papers upon allied subjects / by Sydney Stephenson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    chiefly by army surgeons, poured forth from the publishers. The disease became widely recognised among the profession as one of the most formidable maladies known to medical science. As a result of all this agitation, stringent measures were taken—at any rate as regards the army—to stamp out the mischief. It would be beside the present purpose to trace the onward progress of ophthalmia in these islands, or to tell of the different steps that have been taken to free the army from the pest. It may, however, be stated in general terms that the amount of the disease has been materially lessened, and that modern epidemics are, as a rule, far milder in type than those of sixty or seventy years ago. There are two reasons why so much has been heard of epidemic ophthalmia during the last half-century. In the first place, the press, keenly alive to the value of sensational matter, rarely neglects an opportunity of drawing attention to the subject. So that now-a-days every newspaper reader is familiar with the headline, Ophthalmia in a Pauper School, and also with the kind of report that usually follows such an announcement. Secondly, numerous schools have sprung into existence, many of them built and conducted in defiance of the elementary laws of hygiene. Dormitories and classrooms, for instance, are overcrowded and badly ventilated, and there is often a common use of washing utensils. In many cases no provision is made for isolation, which, it need hardly be remarked, is a first necessity in the preventive treatment of ophthalmia. Moreover, some schools make no attempt whatever to stay the admission of diseased children from outside, the gravity of which statement is apparent when we reflect that a single case of ophthalmia may become the starting point of a widespread outbreak. In a word, these imperfectly arranged schools form hotbeds for the growth and spread of this and of other contagious maladies. Latter day epidemics of ophthalmia vary much in severity. They range from a simple inflammation, entailing no further damage, to a severe condition that may speedily terminate in loss of sight. They differ, moreover, not only in their immediate, but also in their remote results. Some of them, for example, are unattended by