On wounds and injuries of the eye / by William White Cooper.

  • Cooper, William White, 1816-1886.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On wounds and injuries of the eye / by William White Cooper. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/396 (page 9)
    being now fitted witli plates and screws. The saw-grinders at one time were often very seriously injured from the stones breaking whilst they were at work.^ I never remember to have met with an instance in which the sparks or fires were on the sclerotica; their seat is always in the cornea. When they are examined under the microscope they appear smooth and round. Dr. Mackenzie justly points out that other metallic particles which strike the eye are minute unignited splinters thrown ofi with great force as in turning or filing iron; these are sharp and angular, and are firmly wedged in the epithelium of the cornea; such particles are not attracted by the magnet until after they have been dried, and being firmly impacted in the cornea, the proposition which has been often made of removing them by aid of a magnet is of little practical use. The spot on the cornea which has been injured by ignited metal, may long afterwards become the seat of morbid action. A delicate, pallid lad, aged 14, apprenticed to a blacksmith, came under my care at St. Mary's, in August last. He was sufiering from photophobia and some congestion of the left eye, and the cornea presented a deep excavation, at the bottom of which was a dark stain. My first impression was that this had been a recent injury, but I was informed that twelve months had elapsed since a fire'' had struck the cornea, in which it was imbedded for two days, and that a fortnight elapsed before the eye had recovered. The present symptoms had appeared a week previously to my seeing him, and several weeks elapsed before the ulcer healed under the influence of tonics and local stimulants. If a foreign body is allowed to remain in the cornea it excites inflammation; the adjacent portion of the cornea ' Dr. Hall, 'On the Siieffield Grinders' Disease,' p. 18.