Illustrations of some of the principal diseases of the eye : with a brief account of their symptoms, pathology, and treatment / by Henry Power.

  • Power, H. (Henry), 1829-1911.
Date:
1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Illustrations of some of the principal diseases of the eye : with a brief account of their symptoms, pathology, and treatment / by Henry Power. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    firmly compressed between the fingers, they are sometimes tender, and the patients complain of occasional darting pains passing through them. On everting the eyelid their exact position can generally be easily recognised by a thinning of the palpebral mucous membrane, and the appearance of a small circular bluish or yellowish white disk. (Plate I., fig. 4.) The contents of these small sacculi vary considerably. In many cases, on puncturing the cyst, a little thin transparent or slightly opalescent fluid alone escapes, whilst in others the material is clotted, as in sebaceous cysts, or puriform. If wholly left to themselves, they generally burst after two or three months, or sometimes after a much longer period, through the conjunctiva, and occasionally through the skin of the lid, a small fungous excrescence often appearing at the orifice of the sac. The treatment of these cysts is very simple. It consists in everting the lid and introducing a sharp-edged flat needle through the palpebral conjunctiva. After enlarging the open- ing, the needle should be made to scrape or cut the inner surface of the tumour in several directions, with the object of setting up inflammation, by which the cavity may be obli- terated. When the contents of the tumour are very fluid^ an immediate reduction in its size is apparent; but in other instances very little matter escapes, and the cavity, becoming filled with coagulated blood, only slowly disappears. When the disease is of recent formation, the interior may be lightly touched with a point of nitrate of silver, either pure or diluted with nitrate of potash, applied by means of a porte-caustiquG, carefully avoiding the extension of the caustic to the healthy conjmictiva, by the immediate application of salt and water to the cyst with a camel-hair brush. 8. Epicantlms. This is for the most part a congenital aff'ection, in which, owing to defective development and prominence of the bones