The causes and prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R. E. Dudgeon with a few notes by M. Roth.

  • Fuchs, Ernst, 1851-1930.
Date:
1885
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The causes and prevention of blindness / by Ernst Fuchs ; translated by R. E. Dudgeon with a few notes by M. Roth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    simultaneous concurrence of general marasmus. Thus we have a well defined morbid picture in the symptom-complex : maras- mus, xerosis of the conjunctiva and suppuration of the cornea. If the children do not succumb in consequence of their marasmus, which is most frequently the case, serious impairment of the visual faculty or complete blindness remains. The disease is most frequently met with amongst us in children who are affected with marasmus as a consequence of hereditary syphilis ; but on the whole this is a rare occurrence.* It is met with more frequently in Russia and Brazil. In Russia it is especially prevalent after the great fasts, and destroys or makes blind many children.! In Brazil the ill-fed children of the negro slaves are its chief victims.:}:—In the treatment the chief thing to attend to is the improvement of the nutriment; the local employment of warm fomentations seems to do most good (Gouvea). Many other maladies of childhood, such as the exanthemata, typhus, meningitis, whooping-cough,§ &c, may be accompanied by eye diseases. I shall return to this subject hereafter (in Part IV). * Among his 1000 cases of blindness, Cohn gives eight cases of kerato- malacia. t Thalbero Archiv f. Augenheilkunde, B. XII., p. 320. t Gouvea, v. Graefe's Archiv f. Ophth. Bd. XXIX., Abth. i, p. 167. Gouvea and Leber (v. Graefe's Archiv, Bd. XXIX. Abth. 3, p. 225) -ive the literature of this subject. § Landesberg (Med. and Surg. Reporter, Vol. XLIIL, Sep., 1880) re- ports four cases of eye affections after whooping cough, two of neuritis optica (m one case with V = tf, in the other with V = ^ one of exophthalmus, one of luxatio lentis.