Remarks on the routine use of the ophthalmoscope in cerebral disease / by J. Hughlings Jackson.

  • Jackson, J. Hughlings (John Hughlings), 1835-1911.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the routine use of the ophthalmoscope in cerebral disease / by J. Hughlings Jackson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    will show it is not accepted by very many physicians. To some the statement seems to be mere nonsense. Of course my experience of abnormal conditions of the fundus oculi is one-sided. I see what I may briefly designate physician's cases. I would say of them that I oltener see extreme ophthalmoscopical appearances without any defect of sight than with any considerable defect of sight—say defect which the patient or his friends recognise. Lest this appear the extravagant statement of one who has become wedded to an early-formed opinion, I will give Gowers' conclusions from his field of observa-^ tion. In reply (a) to your question as to my experience of optic neuritis without defect of sight, I should say that in at least half the cases of neuritis in cerebral tumoura which I have seen there has been no defect of sight, either of acuteness of vision or in the extent of the field. In at least half the cases during the acute stage of the inflammation, and in a considerable proportion of cases throughout there has been no detect of sight. It is cer- tainly more frequent for vision to sufler during the sub- sidence of inflammation (from the cicatricial contraction of the tissue formed) than during the active process. No doubt it is more common for sight to be affected in de- scending neuritis; but according to my microscopical observations, descending neuritis is rare, except in menin- gitis, in which observations on vision cannot often be made. In the Medical Times and Gazette so far back as June 19,1865, I recorded the case of a man who died of (a) A good example of neuritis without defect of sight at any ime is figured from a drawing by Gowers in Mr. Haynes Walton's- book on Diseases of the Eye, last edition.