A case of choroidal inflammation, with permanent loss of vision, caused by excessive use of the eyes during a comparatively short period of time / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A case of choroidal inflammation, with permanent loss of vision, caused by excessive use of the eyes during a comparatively short period of time / by D.B. St. John Roosa. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ing that he did not grow worse, he did not consult me again until the loth of January, 1898, when I found exactly the same vision, the right eye, |-§-, the left |-§-. He complained of the same subjective blur, which he insisted had never changed since the morn- ing after the exposure of his eyes to prolonged use. T then found, on ophthalmoscopic examination, that the vitreous had quite cleared up, but there were sev- eral spots of choroidal atrophy over which the retinal vessels passed. The patient was continuing his occupation as a physician, besides being some- what interested as a municipal officer in a small city, and had no particular inconvenience, except that he always has what he called a blind spot in his right eye, as at his visit in 1896. On the 19th of December, 1903, the doctor again consulted me, and I found his vision exactly the same with the right eye, rather better with the left, it being indicated by the fraction The ophthalmoscope showed the same extensive choroidal changes—atrophy in the right eye. The left fundus oculi appeared to me to be normal. The patient came at this time to be fitted with glasses for reading, he having become very presbyopic. Remarks.—Although continuous use of the eyes on small objects is constantly enumerated in textbooks as one of the causes of inflammatory action in the eyeball, such a result is really seldom seen by the oculist. One of the reasons may be that the asthen- opia, which generally follows excessive use, usually causes patients to desist from undue occupation with their eyes, before the danger line has been crossed. Naturally, exceptions to this condition are made in the case of myopes, for myopia is itself an inflammatory condition; but I am referring now to persons who start with emmetropic,* or hyperme- tropic, or slightly hypermetropic, and sound eyes. The relation of cause to effect in the case I am reporting is pretty distinct. The observer was intel-