CHAPTER XVI 

 DISEASES OF THE EYE 



Isolated instances of successful vaccinotherapy when large doses of 

 organisms were employed in certain cases of eye diseases have been 

 reported during the past ten years or more, as for instance by Grey, 

 Gorbunow, Bryan and by Allen. Romer treated hypopyon keratitis 

 with large doses of vaccine and also used autoserothcrapy with some 

 success, using the patients' serum drawn from a blister. A large 

 number of other observers, Darier, W. Zimmermann, Fromaget among 

 them, successfully used diphtheria antitoxin injections, v. Szily used 

 huge doses of gonococcus vaccine (arthogon) in the abortive treatment 

 of ophthalmoblennorrhea with surprisingly good results, but it was 

 not until the report of Miiller and Thanner was published that much 

 attention was given to therapy of this nature. In fact, the use of 

 nonspecific therapy in the treatment of eye diseases may be stated 

 to date from their observations. 



Miiller and Thanner injected 5 c.c. of milk intramuscularly in 

 4 cases of parenchymatous keratitis, all of whom improved, as did 

 likewise 11 cases of iritis. It was noted that when the iritis was due 

 to gonococcus infection the improvement was not as prompt as in 

 those of rheumatic origin or iritides of undetermined etiology. In 

 these the pain and photophobia disappeared in 24 hours. In nine cases 

 of corneal opacity (without choroiditis) little improvement was ob^ 

 served, nor did they see any effect on choroiditis. 



Friedlander began the treatment of trachoma, using a somewhat 

 larger dosage (10 c.c. of milk intramuscularly injected). In 42 cases 

 so treated the results were reported to be excellent. Injections were 

 given every 4 days. 



Hiihn had noted previously that trachoma cases under his care 

 in a hospital for children improved remarkably during the course of 

 a scarlet fever epidemic and then tried out the use of milk injections, 

 too, in order to simulate the clinical picture of the spontaneous disease. 

 He reports that with the milk he obtained excellent results. Rosen- 

 stein treated trachoma with milk injections with satisfactory results; 

 Konigstein, in a discussion at the Gesellschaft fur Aerzte at Vienna, 

 stated that in some thirty cases he had witnessed both increased ir- 

 ritation and also improvement in his cases. Blatt does not believe 

 that the method is useful. Pflugk, also using milk, obtained good 

 results in iritis, in keratitis parenchymatosa and in adult blennorrhea. 



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