Clinical lectures on some of the principal diseases of the eye / by Isidor Gluck.

  • Glück, Isidor.
Date:
1855
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical lectures on some of the principal diseases of the eye / by Isidor Gluck. 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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    198 means of diagnosticating diseases of the cornea; it will be the more visible the less its transparency, in consequence of the change of the optically equal texture of the cornea. Thus abrasions of the corneal epithelium and transparent exudations may be diagnosticated by the increased diffusion of light produced by them. For this reason you see here the opacity in both eyes without difficulty. The increased diffusion of light produced by the transparent part of the cornea shows a change of the corneal texture, and even in the opacity itself you observe differences of shade of light and color, from the fact that the optical equality is disturbed variously through the dif- ference of the altered texture showing the opacity. The texture of every organ is the result of a peculiar formation out of the plasma necessary to it, which latter although formally for all organs homo- geneous, still chemically must be regarded as a specific different one. The capacity of formation peculiar to each organ, may be considered as a part of the vital energy common to the whole organism. The abnormalisms of tex- ture may be looked upon as produced by changes of the plasma contribut- ing to the growth of the organ, or as the result of an altered specific vital energy, modifying the process of formation. We will confine ourselves, how- ever, to such alterations of the cornea as are objectively perceptible or visible. The loss of optical equality depends upon the existence of anomalous ele- ments entering into the formation of the parenchyma of the cornea or of its epithelium. Let us follow the formation of the cornea and observe it when in a pathological condition. Inflammation in the cornea is commonly re- garded as the most frequent cause of alterations, and hence resulting opaci- ties. The cornea proper being, as above remarked, in its normal condition entirely destitute of vessels, an inflammation of its parenchyma is almost inadmissible. Although the formation of vessels during inflammation might induce the belief in the preexistence of such vessels, which being of a small calibre, admit but serum, and in their morbid condition subsequently filled, may carry red corpuscles of blood, and thus are more apparent; still it must be admitted that inflammation of the cornea exists also without the for- mation of vessels, and moreover, their presence is not always proportionate to the exudation. Sometimes the greatest development of the vessels is accompanied by com- paratively small exudations, whereas in other instances the profusest exuda- tions forming in cancer and tubercle of the cornea, and all such exudations which put on a genuine fibrinous, firm, and tough product, assuming a higher organization by splitting into fibres or remaining in the crude state, primarily run through their course without even the slightest vestige of a formation of