A treatise on the physiology and diseases of the eye : containing a new mode of curing cataract without an operation : experiments and observations on vision, also on the inflection, reflection, and colours of light : together with remarks on the preservation of sight, and on spectacles, reading-glasses, &c. / by John Harrison Curtis.

  • Curtis, John Harrison, 1778-approximately 1860.
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the physiology and diseases of the eye : containing a new mode of curing cataract without an operation : experiments and observations on vision, also on the inflection, reflection, and colours of light : together with remarks on the preservation of sight, and on spectacles, reading-glasses, &c. / by John Harrison Curtis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    of which much has been written, hitherto unsuc- cessfully, and which some have supposed to be in the pineal gland, others in the corpus cal- losum, others in the cerebrum, and some in the cerebellum. Yet, much as this purely specula- tive question has engaged attention, it is strange that few endeavours have hitherto been made to answer the practically important query of, Where is the principal seat of disease ? Instead of discussing what we can know nothing about, would it not be wiser and better to seek to solve this great problem ? If it be in any one part more than another, I should be inclined to think that part is the semilunar ganglion and solar plexus,* situated near the stomach, and connected with the great sympathetic nerve, which exercises such a leading influence on all the organs of the body, and more particularly on those of the eye and ear. Hence we shall find, that derangements of the above-mentioned ganglia f are the source of nervous affections of the sight and hearing. * Vide Manec's excellent plate and description of the great sympathetic nerve, shewing the various ganglia. t The ganglia are small knots or masses of nervous matter, which are situated along the course of the nerves generally, where two or three of them form an angle, and