Notes on contagious diseases of the eyes in schools and asylums / by Cornelius R. Agnew.

  • Agnew, Cornelius Rea, 1830-1888.
Date:
[1882?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on contagious diseases of the eyes in schools and asylums / by Cornelius R. Agnew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [No. 44.] jitete lioavd of -Health of Aina %u.vh. NOTES ON CONTAGIOUS DISEASES OF THE EYES IN SCHOOLS AND ASYLUMS* . By Cornelius R. Agnew, A. M., M. D., New York. Clinical Professor, Diseases of the Eye and Ear, College of Physi¬ cians and Surgeons, New Joiik. Surgeon to Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, etc., etc. REPRINTED PROM THE SECOND ANNEAL REPORT OF THE STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. Many evils exist in the method of treating children upon the con¬ gregate plan in schools and reformatories. I propose in the following brief chapter to call attention to one of them which does not seem to attract the attention its gravity demands. I refer to communicable eye disease. I constantly see in my practice at the Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital, New York, and elsewhere, patients who have contracted these diseases and got as a consequence, some lesion of the palpebral conjunctiva or cornea, which has either resulted in blindness or such impairment of vision, or of the power of endurance of their eyes, as to reduce greatly the industrial capacity of the individual. Diseases of the conjunctiva, and of the cornea are largely the cause of prevailing blindness, and yet they belong in a great degree to the class of preventable diseases. The fact that they do fall into this class gives to the sanitarian and to the legislators a special opportunity and advantage for inquiry, advice, and legal enactment to limit or prevent their prevalence. Some time ago I was called to a school, in one of our couuties, in which several hundred children had been gathered, chiefly from the streets of the city of New York. I found more than half the inmates suffering from a malignant type of purulent ophthalmia. The dis¬ ease had rapidly become epidemic in the school and dormitories until the proper educational work of the establishment was suspended, and the insufficient energy of its entire force of teachers and nurses turned * The occurrence of contagious ophthalmia in crowded primary schools and large asy¬ lums induced the State Board of Health to request Dr. Agnew to prepare this brief chap ter of information and advice, derived from his recent and careful studies of the subject. E. H., Secretary of the Board.