Accommodation in the lensless eye : to what is it due? / by A. Edward Davis.

  • Davis, Achilles Edward, 1866-1941.
Date:
[1895]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Accommodation in the lensless eye : to what is it due? / by A. Edward Davis. 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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    ACCOMMODATION IN THE LENSLESS EYE—TO WHAT IS IT DUE? A. EDWARD DAVIS, A.M., M.D., Assistant Surgeon Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital ; Instructor in Diseases of the Eye, New York Post-Graduate .Modi, a] School .aid Hospit.d ; Aitcndin- Ophthalmic Surgeon, Bellevue Hospital, O.-D. P.; etc. MY attention was first called to this very interesting physio- logical question by a remarkable case of this kind which occurred in my private practice. On looking over the literature of the subject, I find the question of ac- commodation in the lensless eye still an unsettled one. Lead- ing authorities—Helmholtz, Donders, Mannhardt—on the one hand, asserting that the lensless eye is devoid of accommoda- tion, Donders * declaring that his investigations had led him to the conviction, that in aphakia not the slightest trace of accommo- dative power remains. On the other hand, eminent authorities —Forster, Woinow, von Grsefe, Loring—contend that accom- modation does exist in aphakial eyes, Loring\ affirming that occasionally a considerable, if not a large degree of accommo- dation may exist, even in a lensless eye. Not only have these eminent authorities disagreed on the abstract point of accommodation, or no accommodation in the lensless eye, but, unfortunately, those who have agreed on one side or the other, do not agree as to how, if present, it is brought about ; or how, if not present, it still appears to be present. Undoubtedly the absence of the same or uniform tests accounts for a great deal of this difference of opinion. That some lensless eyes possess the power of adjusting them- selves to seeing objects at different distances (call it accommo- dation, or what you will), with one and the same glass, and that glass held at one distance from the eye, there is no question in my mind whatever. How this adjustment or accommodation is brought about is quite a different question. Besides my own case, I am able, through the courtesy of Dr. * Donders, Accom. and Refrac. of the Eye, 1864, p. 320. t Flint, Physiology of Man, 1875, vol. v., pp. no, in. Reprinted from Manhattan Eye and Ear Hospital Reports, Jan., 1895