Prize essay, on fistula lachrymalis / by Robert W. Haxall.

  • Haxall, Robert W. (Robert William), 1802-1872.
Date:
1832
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Prize essay, on fistula lachrymalis / by Robert W. Haxall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    runcula Lachrymalis being looked upon as the punctum saliens of all the mischief which followed. Fallopius himself, who first gave an accurate representation of the Sac and Nasal Duct in the sixteenth century, seems to have fallen into the same mistake; and it is truly remarkable that a similar error, according to Heister's account, should have continued down to the commencement of the last century. Being acquainted with the true anatomy of the parts concerned in Fistula Lachrymalis, an erroneous no- tion of its pathology appears still to have existed, and for a long time patients were doomed to undergo the painful application of eroding escharotics and disorganizing cau- teries. Demonstrative and physiological anatomy however, within late years, has done much in clearing away the rubbish which encumbered medical opinions, and among the great mass of diseases relative to the pathology of which we have become more enlightened, it will be found that this has not been the last to benefit by the change. Much contrariety of opinion has hitherto existed among modern writers, and I know not that the point is yet fully set- tled, as to what a Fistula Lachrymalis really is. Some have given this name to various diseased conditions of the lach- rymal organs, dividing them by way of distinction, into true or false, perfect or imperfect Fistulas; while others have confined the term to that state of things alone, in which there exists a fistulous orifice, giving vent to the altered secretions of the part. As far as I have been able to make the examination, authors of the present time ap- pear inclined to adopt the latter definition, because it gives a more accurate idea of the true nature of the affection,