On ophthalmostasis : with an account of an improved method in extraction of the cataract / by John F. France.

  • France, John Frederick, 1818-1900.
Date:
[1858]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On ophthalmostasis : with an account of an improved method in extraction of the cataract / by John F. France. 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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    but on the living it proved utterly abortive, and was re- linquished as such by its author. Samuel Sharp, the eminent surgeon of our own hospital, was among the first to hail the new operation, to practise it, and attempt its improvement. His observations and the figure of the knife he recommended (but which is now dis- used) will be found in the Philosophical Transactions of 1753. In the latter of his two papers,^ he says, “ It is to be hoped that when extraction shall be more generally practised, ingenious men will render it still more perfect; and I should not be surprised if the use of a speculum oculi should here- after be deemed an improvement; but then it must be con- trived so as that it shall not compress the globe of the eye, or if it does the operator must be careful to remove it in the instant the incision is making/' Twenty years later, Joseph Warner (who for the un- exampled period of forty-five years ® trod the wards of Guy's, its equally distinguished surgeon), adverting to the same topic as his former colleague, wrote, “ The common speculum oculi must not be made use of in this operation, since the compression from that instrument will be found to be so great as to squeeze out a part of the vitreous humour.® To appreciate the force of this objection it is requisite to ascertain the form of the now obsolete instrument referred to. A kind apparently long in vogtle, and figured by Dionis,^ is represented of reduced size in fig. f. It consists simply of a metal ring, meant to press on the front of the eye, mounted on a handle. Mr. Sharp himself had delineated a modification of the same instrument prior to the introduction of extraction.® It was capable of adjustment to eyes of differing volume, being so constructed as to provide for the enlargement or contraction of the metal circlet, by means of the division of the latter into two segments springing from a forceps-like handle, the blades of which ' November, 1753. ’ From 1745 to 1790. ^ ‘ Description of the Human Eye and its adjacent parts, with their principal Diseases, &c., 1773. * ‘Chirurgical Operations,’ translated from the Paris edition. London, 1733. * ‘ Treatise on the Operations of Surgery,’ 1739.