RETINITIS. 



With choroiditis and cyclitis, albuminuria, nephritis, mellituria, leukse- 

 tnia, petechial fever, contagious pneumonia. Photophobia, contracted 

 pupil, redness around optic disc, enlarged retinal vessels, white and gray 

 spots and radiating lines, exudates, clots, fatty degeneration. Treatment : 

 correct primary disease. 



Retinitis is usually an accompaniment of choroiditis and cyclitis, 

 but it also occurs as a complication in a number of constitutional 

 maladies, such as albuminuria, nephritis, mellituria, leukaemia, 

 petechial fever, contagious pneumonia, etc. Frohner records a 

 case in a leuksemic horse, Peters in one suffering from petechial 

 fever, Schindelka in cases of contagious pneumonia in the horse, 

 and Eversbusch in recurrent ophthalmia of the horse, and under 

 other conditions in dogs. 



The attack is accompanied at the outset with much photo- 

 phobia and contraction of the pupil. When this is dilated and 

 the fundus of the eye examined with the ophthalmoscope, the 

 retina is seen to be reddened for some distance around the optic 

 disc and the blood-vessels are materially enlarged. I^ater, white 

 or gray spots and lines are seen in and around the disc, tending 

 to assume a radiating direction, and the retina at large, on care- 

 ful examination may have a distinctly striped appearance. 

 Brownish, reddish or light colored exudates and haemorrhages 

 may be made out in certain cases between retina and hyaloid, 

 or between the retina and choroid. Fatty degeneration of the 

 fibrous tissue is Common. 



Treatment must be first that for the primary disease of which 

 the retinitis is a complication, and the result will depend on how 

 amenable that affection is to therapeutic measures. In advanced 

 albuminuria or mellituria, the retinitis, which is usually double, 

 is hopeless, while in contagious pneumonia, petechial fever, leu- 

 kaemia and other less fatal affections, retinitis in its initial stages 

 may recover. In cases of advanced disease with serious struc- 

 tural changes in the retina, recovery cannot be looked for. 

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