Granular ophthalmia / by Assistant-Surgeon Welch.

  • Welch, Francis Henry, 1839-1910.
Date:
[1870?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Granular ophthalmia / by Assistant-Surgeon Welch. 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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    on foreign service maintaining a high general average ; the re- remainder fluctuating very greatly. (d) In those stations maintaining a high general average and regarded “ as hot beds of the disease,” “ fostering seats of ophthalmic “ germs,” the remarkable manner in which some regiments escape entirely, others only slightly infected, or severely, with no cor- responding ratio to length of service, indicate that some cause essentially of a limited nature—e.g., certain barracks—affecting individual corps, and not dependent on climate as its direct agency, must be sought for in elucidating the etiology of the disease. (e) A high sick list from ophthalmia in the “variable ratio” stations is directly traceable to the importation of an infected corps, the dis- ease assuming high proportions on its advent, and departing with it, the previous and subsequent absence clearly contra-indicating climate or local peculiarities of soil or barrack as cause ; to wit, the excess in Dublin in 1861 from presence of 87th Regiment from China ; in the Windward and Leeward Command in 1861-62, from the 21st Regiment from Malta; in Canada in 1859, and in Bermuda in 1860 from the 39th Regiment, and the reduction in the former station from 35 per 1,000 of admissions in 1859 to 117 in 1860, on'its departure ; in Jamaica, in I860, from 1st Battalion 14th Regiment from Mediterranean (disease originating in Malta, and furnishing 120 out of 190 total admissions from ophthalmia in 1859 in Corfu) from 1027 per 1,000 in 1860 to 8'8 in 1865, when regiment removed ; in the Mauritius, in 1863-64, from the 2nd Battalion 13th Regiment from Cape, and in 1865, from the 2nd Battalion 22nd Regiment from Malta; in New Brunswick, in 1864-65, from the 1st Battalion 15th Regiment; and in 1866, from 1st Battalion 22nd Regiment from Malta; in New Zealand, in 1865-66, from the 2nd Battalion 14th Regiment, and 50th Regiments ; in 1865, the decrease at Aden and excess at Kurrachee by the transferrence of the 95th Regiment ; in Australia, in 1866 on transferrence of 2nd Battalion 14th Regiment from New Zealand, and in Japan, in 1866 from 2nd Battalion 9th Regiment, from China. (/) The frequent instances of European Regiments suffering whilst the Native force and inhabitants generally permanently exposed to climatic agencies remain exempt, the limitation of the disease as exemplified in the band and drums of the 70th Regiment, in New Zealand, in 1862, the wing of the 50tli Regiment in Ceylon from 60‘3, the marked contrast between corps in the same district, the remarkable exemption so frequently displayed on the part of the Cavalry, Artillery, and Engineers quartered in a station with their infected brethren of the Line—the segment of the Army con- stantly producing a relative high ratio of admissions and in- validing—all demonstrate indubitably an agency otherwise than climate. (<7) As few battalions escape a sojourn during foreign service in Malta, the Cape, or an “ hotbed for ophthalmic germs ” garrison in the plains of India, few avoid the taint of the disease among the rank and file ; and that, while a regiment or corps may remain in Malta or the Cape for four or five years and enjoy an immunity (no doubt from escaping a residence in certain barracks), yet, as a rule, a two years’ occupation of unsanitary quarters in these stations renders “ follicular disease” of the conjunctiva all but universal among its components.”* r Other points also to be noted are—the remarkable persistency of the disease in certain corps for several consecutive years, e.g., 1st Battalion 15th Regiment and 76th Regiments, stated by the Surgeons in 1859 as “ prevalent for a “ number of years,” and the effect of removal of corps from stations originat- * “ 169 cases of chronic ophthalmia passing through Chatham in 1860 as invalids “ represented 57 different regiments, three only of which belonged to the Cavalry, the “ rest to the Line.” Report, 1860, p. 404.