Cataract extraction : being a series of papers with discussion and comments read before the Ophthalmological section of the New York academy of medicine, 1907-1908 / edited by J. Herbert Claiborne.

Date:
1908
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Cataract extraction : being a series of papers with discussion and comments read before the Ophthalmological section of the New York academy of medicine, 1907-1908 / edited by J. Herbert Claiborne. 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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    bathed with the same solution; then gently holding the lids open the pupil and corneal wound are inspected by the light of a candle. If the pupil is central and circular the dressings are reapplied. The dressings should be changed daily, under strictly antiseptic precautions, until the wound is healed. On the third day after the operation a drop of sterile atropin should be instilled into the eye, and this should be repeated daily until the eye is quiet and white. Both eyes are kept closed for five or six days when the operated eye is left un- covered. About the seventh or eighth day all dressings may be left off and the eye beprotected by a shade or smoked coquilles. From the tenth to the fourteenth day the patient may be allowed to take a little exercise out of doors. Usu- ally at the end of two weeks the patient may go home. If the combined operation is performed the eyes should be inspected forty-eight hours following the operation, but earlier if there is any special indication, as pain, to demand investigation. The above description applies to the normal uncompli- cated course of healing following the extraction of senile cataract. Several complications both of a local and a general nature may occur to interrupt and retard the heal- ing process or even jeopardize the success of the operation altogether. Local Complications.—(1) Delayed union.—This may result from improper apposition of the wound surfaces, es- pecially when the incision has been made altogether in the clear cornea; or it may result from lack of nutrition in old or debilitated patients, at times without any apparent cause. In the cases due to lack of nutrition, tonics and con- centrated food diet should be resorted to. The eye must be kept bandaged until the wound closes, even if it is as long as