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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    would take place and when it would not. He thought that most of us started out with the idea of doing the simple operation. We were frequently disappointed and had to abscise the resulting prolapse of the iris. He called atten- tion to the fact that in many cases of simple extraction the resulting pupil was not central. Dr. Perct Fredexberg thought that if hypnotics were more frequently given before and after operation, the results might be better. The speculum was a dangerous instru- ment. The lid retractor should be used instead whenever possible. In concluding. Dr. Coburn remarked that a number of objections might be raised against the combined operation: iridectomy was an unnecessary traumatism: cosmetic results were not so pleasing; visual fields and visual acuity were impaired; the operation was more difficult to perform: it was a simple extraction together with an iridectomy; the cut- ting of the iris was frequently painful and caused the patient to become unruly; the iridectomy was often in- correctly done and the columns of the coloboma were not properly replaced: blood in the anterior chamber from the cut iris obscured the field of operation and necessitated immediate lavage wirh attendant risk of infection; tags of capsule and pieces of lens substance were apt to become entangled in the lips of the wound: prolapse of the vitreous was more frequent; iritis was more common: more instru- ments were required; hence more danger of infection; the operation was longer: an assistant was necessary. He said that these objections to the combined operation were confirmed by the statistics of Dr. W. F. Rin^ Med- ical Record, February 23. 1895] who collated the results of 1032 combined extractions made by operators of recognized ability in America and Europe.