429 



sinus disease was clearly due to eye-strain. 1 Reflex congestion of 

 the upper air-passages, pharyngitis, laryngitis, aphonia, common 

 colds, and influenza, may be, and more frequently than supposed, 

 due to eye-strain. 



In general surgery nothing, a short time ago, would have seemed 

 more absurd than to say that eye-strain could at least prevent sur- 

 gical disease and operations. Yet Dr. Robert T. Morris of New York, 2 

 whose character and professional standing need no setting forth, 

 writes as follows : 



" A very large group of cases of intestinal fermentation is depend- 

 ent upon eye-strain. These cases are perhaps quite as often over- 

 looked as any others, but as soon as we have all become familiar 

 with the external signs of eye-strain, fewer cases will get to the sur- 

 geon with the diagnosis of abdominal disorder. The ones that I 

 see are sent to the office most often with the request to have the 

 appendix examined, because the distension of the cecum is apt to 

 cause more pain than distention of other parts of the bowel and 

 attention is attracted to this region. If there are external evidences 

 of eye-strain, these cases are referred to the ophthalmologist, along 

 with my cases of nervous 'dyspepsia' and 'gastric neuralgia,' and 

 some of the most brilliant results that I have observed in any 

 kind of medical practice have come out of the treatment that was 

 instituted." 



If an oculist had first made such a statement, the grin of derision 

 would have extended across the face of the Continent. Because 

 the general surgeon thus annually turns away from his office thou- 

 sands of dollars' worth of operations, it derives at least the merit 

 of unselfishness. 



There is no truth in medicine more certain and demonstrable, 

 although the gastrologist has not heard of it, than that eye-strain 

 produces anorexia, denutrition, intestinal fermentation, con- 

 stipation, and many disorders of the digestive organs, including, 

 especially, the liver, although in no book on stomachal and intes- 

 tinal diseases is the subject mentioned. If so, it is, of course, ad- 

 mitted that the surgical diseases secondary to such disorders may 

 be ocular in remote origin, and the warning may not in future be 

 safely unobserved by the appendicitis specialist, the gastrologist, 

 the gynecologist, etc. Within a year a famous medical journal 

 has editorially stated that all obscure gastric symptoms demand 

 the excision of the gastric ulcer. That is, surely, surgery gone mad. 



In orthopedic surgery a new causal relation has most recently 

 been discovered between eye-strain and spinal curvature. Sco- 

 liosis begins in childhood and adolescence, as spinal curvature, 



1 American Medicine, 1904. 



2 Medical Record, December 26, 1903. 



