Treatise on the diseases of the eye, including the anatomy of the organ / by Carl Stellwag von Carion ; translated from the fourth German edition and edited by D.B. St John Roosa, Charles S. Bull, and Charles E. Hackney.

Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Treatise on the diseases of the eye, including the anatomy of the organ / by Carl Stellwag von Carion ; translated from the fourth German edition and edited by D.B. St John Roosa, Charles S. Bull, and Charles E. Hackney. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    careless persons, especially children, the occasional getting the preparations used into the eyes is scarcely to be avoided. Such a soiling is the more dangerous the severer the irritation. Vesicants also, although generally applied some distance from the eye, not unfrequently make the irritated condition much worse. The patients are inclined to scratch, rub, and feel about the excortiated portion in order to alleviate the unpleasant sensation which the blister causes, or in order to remove the sensation of the part which is robbed of its epidermis, and thus they soil the hands, and with them the sensitive surface of the eye. 3. Snvff-'-taking.—This irritates the eyes, especially when the person is unac- customed to its use. In the case of amateurs, therefore, a slight injection of the conjunctiva with severe sneezing generally follows taking a pinch. In view of this, snuff-taking can only be allowed in those cases where the patient is in the habit of it, and a slight increase of the irritation involves no danger. In inflamma- tions which may readily have bad consequences, even the ordinary snuff-taker may be only exceptionally allowed the moderate use of snuff, and then with the greatest care. 4. The abode in a damp room, or one filled with excrementitious exhalations, or with irritating vapors of any kind whatever.—Pure air is, indeed, one of the most important requisites for the successful treatment of eye-diseases. We cannot too strenuously recommend that the patients be placed in rooms which can be easily and thoroughly aired, and we should keep away from them all the above-named sources of injury. Our special attention should be directed to the habit of cooking, washing, carrying on of many odorous employments in the ordinary living-rooms of the poor; also keeping in the room the remains of food, of half-filled chamber utensils, or the stowing away of soiled linen in the apartment. The condition of the patient, however, does not always permit that he should remain indoors. In many cases it may even be desirable that he take exercise in the open air. Where walking is recommended, the surgeon should never forget the tendency of patients to exceed what is recommended. A proper precaution demands that the patient should be entirely forbidden to visit taverns, restaurants, theaters, balls, concerts, and, in general, places where many people aie gathered together. In such localities many sources of injury concentrate, and operate in conjunction with other injurious influences; for example, dazzling and irregular illumination, which is so powerful a morbid agent, that by it even a very slight irritation can be increased to one of the severest and most destructive inflammatory processes. In hospitals and similar institutions it is of im- portance to look well to the condition of the water-closets. Very often these have become infernal pits, whose pestilential vapors even force tears from healthy eyes, and are very naturally more destructive to diseased ones. 5. Tobacco-Smoke.—This is a bitter enemy to diseased eyes, and it must be laid down as a fixed rule, that eye-patients should always, and under all circumstances, avoid closed places where there is any smoking. The patient with a diseased eye must not smoke in his own room, nor allow others to do so, even if the ventilation be very good. In very mild irritations, however, which allow the patient to go out in the open air, but only in these, an absolute denial of tobacco-smoking is not always justified. Patients who smoke daily, and are passionately fond of it, bear such a denial with difficulty, and a persis- tence in its enforcement will probably lead to its secret use. In cases where a slight increase of the irritation can produce no especial harm it seems better, therefore, to allow the patient to smoke moderately, taking certain precautions. The first rule is, to smoke only in the open 9