Ophthalmia neonatorum : especially in reference to its prevention / by W. G. Sym.

  • Sym, William George, 1864-1938.
Date:
[1894]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ophthalmia neonatorum : especially in reference to its prevention / by W. G. Sym. 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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    neonatorum in Berlin every year. Most of these, of course, are cured and leave no evil result, but to the blind population of Germany generally there are added 600 persons annually who have lost their sight Irom this cause. There are at present in England and Scotland, according to the census returns for 1891, no fewer than 26,264 persons registered as blind ; allowing—and it is a very generous allowance—that not 30 but 25 per cent, of these were due to curable or preventable ophthalmia neonatorum, then there would have been at this moment walking about and doing their own proper work, and taking their own proper share in the joy of life and the prosperity of the nation, 6566 men and women, who are thus causelessly doomed to suffer under one of the greatest privations to which we are liable, and who are also more or less unproductive and a money-consuming burden on the community. Nor must the general practitioner turn round upon me and say that we specialists are to blame for this state of affairs, for the truth is that while the results of ophthalmia neonatorum bear so very large a proportion to the other causes of blindness, the cases of that disease brought to us are a mere drop in the bucket. I will not refer to the proportion affected of all children born in lying-in institutions, because, for obvious reasons, that would not be a fair criterion, but I give you the figures respecting all the births in and out of such institutions for a certain town. In the city to which I refer (Breslau), tliere took place within a certain period of time 12,000 births; 250 children, or 2 per cent., were affected with the disease (10). On the otlier hand, not more than I'l per cent, of all tlie cases which apply for relief at eye institutions are cases of ophthalmia neonatorum. By the kindness of the President and of Mr Berry I have looked over the records of 6000 out-patients at the Ophthalmic Department of the Royal Infirmary (3000 of the President's and 3000 of Mr Berry's), and found a percentage of only 037 of ophthalmia neonatorum. At my own Dispensary in Leith.'- the social position of the patients attending which is, on an average, much lower, I find in 3000 cases a percentage of 07. As, how- ever, I shall have occasion to point out to you presently, 1 think the proportion in the English institutions is probably a little higher. To this it must be added, that in speaking of the percentage among births I have spoken of all births; while in regard to cases reported to specialists I have given you the percentage among hospital patients only, for ophthalmia neonatorum is very rarely seen indeed among the better-to-do classes who consult one privately. From the disparity between the great frequency of this di.sease in the world and the relative rarity of its coming muler the notice of specialists, you will gather, 1 think, two conclusions, viz., that we are not very much to blame for the patients who become • Now the Kye Department of Leith Hospita',