The present position of ophthalmic science and art / by D.B. St. John Roosa.

  • Roosa, D. B. St. John (Daniel Bennett St. John), 1838-1908.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The present position of ophthalmic science and art / by D.B. St. John Roosa. 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.

    12/14 (page 10)
    in the best technique of the time, and yet suppu- ration and destruction of the eye resixlt. After the general introduction of Graefe’s narrow knife, in- stead of the old broad instrument, the percentage of losses was sensibly diminished. But, until aseptic treatment was fully understood and practised, and a local anesthetic, cocaine, provided by Koller, the most bitter disappointment often befell the most skilful operators. Now, that the instruments can be so cleansed that they are incapable of carrying infectious disease, and the dressings made absolutely aseptic, and the eye made perfectly insensible to the pain of the operation, the cases of suppuration have diminished to such an extent that a patient in fair health, with cataract, has better chances of a good result, with an operator of average skill, who is exact in his aseptic technique, than he formerly had in the hands of the most renowned operators of the world, when the causes of failure to heal the wound by “first intention” were utterly unknown, and when the patient might I'uin his eye by his own movement during the operation, or in the vomiting from the effects of the ether. In the matter of after-treatment of the capsule, and of iridectomy coincidental with the comeal sections, much of interest remains to be said to specialists. Here the most diverse opinions are still held. No common ground has been reached, and much remains to be done before we are agreed on all these points. But this we may say, that the chances of good vision in our time have been raised from, say, 6o per cent, to 90 per cent., by cocaine, the narrow knife, and aseptic treatment of the dressings, the in- struments, and the eye. We are also in an advanced position in the matter of operative procedures for the removal of iron and steel foreign bodies. The use of the magnet, first, the smaller ones, and, finally, the great one, invented 10 T