An essay on the malformations and congenital diseases of the organs of sight / by W. R. Wilde.

  • Wilde, W. R. (William Robert), 1815-1876.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An essay on the malformations and congenital diseases of the organs of sight / by W. R. Wilde. 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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    superadded in their turn, the pigment is deposited, and the membrana pupillaris is absorbed, all according to defi- nite laws, and at tolerably regular and precise periods. Did space permit, it would form no indifferent preface to this paper to sketch the progress and growth of this indivi- dual organ, from the researches of the best recent observers, but as that cannot, in an essay of this description, be fully accomplished, my readers must concede the anatomical de- scription of its development, as we proceed to inquire into those vices of conformation, the result of arrests of develop- ment in its growth, its colour, its consistency, transparency, and vascular arrangement, as well as those diseases, the re- sult of inflammation, morbid growth, injury, or irregular ac- tion, which present at birth, under the general head of con- genital defects. On this subject very Httle has yet appeared in medical literature. In England I know of no special work, or even essay, upon the vices of conformation, or congenital deformi-^ ties of the organs of sense ; and Mr. Lawrence, in his article on monstrosities, in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, in the year 1814, sums up the defects of the organs of sense, in a paragraph of less than a dozen lines! Since then, however, several dissections of monstrosities have been recorded in the various periodicals of this country, in which some passing note has been afforded us, of the anatomical condition or malformation of the eye, and in the same class of literature, we find here and there, few and far between, facts related upon the same subject specially ; and works upon ophthal- mology, more particularly, occasionally allude to congenital diseases of the organs of sight. In France, as far I have been able to have access to its literature, the same defect is even more apparent than in this country; the works of Geoffrey St. Hillaire, MaUiard, and Cruveilhier, have afforded me but little information.