Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Injuries to the eyeball / by Samuel Mitchell. 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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![[Reprinted from The International Journal of Surgery, Feb. 189?.] INJURIES TO THE EYEBALL * By Samuel Mitchell, M.D., Hornellsville. The subject of injuries to the eyeball is one that is of interest, not to the ophthalmic surgeon alone, but to the general surgeon as well, for the majority of these cases are first seen by the general practitioner, and many of them will do as well in the care of the level-headed all-around-surgeon, as in the hands of a specialist. However, since oculists are becoming about as numerous as dentists, most surgeons find it convenient to place the more serious cases of injuries to the eyeball into the hands of specialists for treat- ment. Among the more common accidents to an eyeball may be mentioned, foreign bodies lodged upon the surface, or imbedded in the substance of the cornea, small particles of steel, cast iron, emery, glass, tvood, pearl, coal cinders, gun powder, small insects and other substances, too numerous to mention, which we are daily called upon to remove. Since the introduction of cocaine, the deft little operation of removing a foreign body from the cornea, has, like many other operations upon the eye, and in fact, many operations in minor surgery, become a simple affair to the operator, and devoid of shock, pain and tediousness to the patient. If the particle is simply adhering to the surface of the cornea, it can be easily swept off, after cocainiz- ing the eye, by one instillation of a 4 per cent, solu- tion of cocaine, by means of the flat spud, or by means of a small pledget of moistened absorbent *Read before the Sixth Annual Meeting of the New York State Association of Railway Surgeons, held at the N. Y. Academy of Medicine, Nov. 17, 1896,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22399690_0003.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
