On the meaning of the words 'nyctalopia' and 'hemeralopia' : as disclosed by an examination of the diseases described under these terms by the ancient and modern medical authors / by John Tweedy.

  • Tweedy, John, 1849-1924.
Date:
1882
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the meaning of the words 'nyctalopia' and 'hemeralopia' : as disclosed by an examination of the diseases described under these terms by the ancient and modern medical authors / by John Tweedy. 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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    Guilleiueau^ refers to it, caucl Scarpa,^ citing Dupont,® also mentions it. Adams, in his commentary on Panins Aegineta,'* states that Phases, Avicennna, Mesne, Jesn Haly, Haly Abbas, and Alsaharavius also speak favourably of the application of the roasted hver in cases of night-blindness. Even in recent times the hepatic treatment of night- bhndness has been employed. Dr. Grant® quotes the ex- perience of Dr. Meissener, and states that he himself “ has repeatedly seen a cure wpparzntly produced by fumigating the eyes with the vapour of a bullock’s liver,” though he does not beheve that there is any specific virtue in the liver. The concomitants of Plippocratic nyctalopia are swelling of the gums, toothache, foul breath, swelhngs below the eyes, bleeding from the nose, enlarged spleen, and ulcers on the legs.® I need scarcely say that this train of symptoms indicates the condition now called Scorbutus, of which night- blindness is a well-known symptom. The account given by Hippocrates may not be a perfectly accurate description of scorbutus in all its parts, but it is sufficiently correct to enable us to identify it. Van Swieten pertinently remarks: “Although it cannot be denied but the ancient physicians have reckoned up many of the symptoms of the scurvy in their descriptions of several distempers, handed down to us under a different denomination; yet it is not so apparent that they have seen into the real nature of the distemper itself, nor so plainly described the symptoms of it, that one may be able from them to gather a full knowledge of the scurvy.”^ Of the accounts given in the Hippocratic writings, he remarks, “though he [Hippocrates] mentions a great many symptoms of the scuivy, seems not to have judged that * Op. cit., pp. 27, 28. ^ Op. cit., p. 254; and Tol. ii, p. 323, of tlie Frencli translation. ^ “ Memoire sur la goutte sereine nocturne epidemique, ou Nyctalopie.” ■* Book iii, sec. 22 ; Syd. Soc. ed. j Tol. i, p. 434. ^ Op. cit. ® “ Prorrhet.,” ii. 7 “ Comment in Hermanni Boerhaave ApLorism Lug. Bat., 1753, t. iii, p. 590 ; or Eng. trans.: Bond., 1754, toI. xi, p. 278.