A study of the contributions to ophthalmology made by our Society during the last 31 years / by George M. Gould.

  • Gould, George Milbrey, 1848-1922.
Date:
1906
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: A study of the contributions to ophthalmology made by our Society during the last 31 years / by George M. Gould. 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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    fReprinteii from Maryland Mkdical Journal, January, 1907.] A STUDY OF THE CONTRIBUTIONS TO OPHTHALMOLOGY MADE BY OUR SO- CIETY DURING THE LAST 31 YEARS. By George M. Gould, M.D., Philadelphia, Pa. READ AT THE MEETING OF THE .AMERIC.AN OPHTHALMOLOGIC.AL S0C1ETY,/NEW YORK CITY, JUNE 27 AND 28, 1906. / / In 1874 some of Dr. Wm. Thomson’s patients discovered that accurate correction of ametropia cured their headaches, insomnia, vertigo, various nervous and psychic ailments, nausea, failure in gen- eral health, etc. Thomson told Dr. S. Weir Mitchell of the facts, and in 1874, 1875 and 1876 Mitchell and Thomson reported their cases in reputable medical journals. Again, in 1879, Thomson published a confirmatory report entitled “Astigmatism as a Cause of Persistent Headache and Other Nervous Symptoms.” In 1875 Dr. R. Brudenell Carter, in his “Textbook on Diseases of the Eye,” tells of a patient with headache, vomiting, and palpitation of the heart who was cured by a pair of spectacles. In 1882 Dr. G. C. Savage gave clinical proofs, and stated the broad truth that sick headaches, or “migraine,” was caused by eyestrain. In 1883 Lau- der Brunton announced that “migraine, or sick headache, is very frequently associated with, and probably dependent on, inequality of the eyes, either in the way of astigmatism, myopia, or hyperme- tropia.” From this time forward many trustworthy clinicians— Hewetson, Ranney, Stevens, Martin, Gould, De Schweinitz, Hin- schelwood, Toms, Callan, Stephenson and a hundred others have m varying degrees and ways reasserted the truth of this theory. If vomiting can be caused by eyestrain, other symptoms referable to diseases of the digestive organs may have a similar origin, and in 1888 I had found it so, and I began publishing reports of such cases. I have continued to do so ever since. In 1898 the general practitioners Stockton and Jones, and in 1903 and 1904 Stockton, give guarded but clear assent to the theory. In 1905 the president