200 Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye. 



content to remain in a state of blindness, if the operation was likely 

 to cost them money. This observation is applicable not to the poorer 

 classes only, but to the rich, who possess ample means of payment, 

 though they can seldom be induced to lay out their wealth on any 

 objects but those which administer to their pleasures. They will 

 however, be found to visit the Hospital at some inconvenience in the 

 expectation of obtaining a pair of spectacles as a gift, which they 

 consider necessary for the completion of the good work performed by 

 the Surgeon." 



The case of intermittent symptomatic ophthalmia is valuable, 

 as being a specimen of cases which are constantly treated as 

 acutely inflammatory, all the symptoms being thereby ag- 

 gravated : (p. 25.) 



" A gentleman who had been many years in this country consulted 

 me for a sudden and very severe pain in the left side of the head and 

 in the globe of the eye, caused by exposure to a cold and damp air. 

 When I saw him, the side of the face and the conjunctiva on the 

 same side were swollen and red ; there was great intolerance of light, 

 etc., and he complained of severe intermitting pain in the same side 

 of the head, but particularly in the globe of the eye. In this case 

 warm soothing lotions to the eye, with quinine and aperients speedily 

 removed all the distressing symptoms. This intermittent inflamma- 

 tion, or rather congestion, I have seen affect the eye in a more chronic 

 form when a treatment with tonics and anodynes proved very effica- 

 cious, proper attention being at the same time paid to diet, and all 

 irritating causes avoided. 



These attacks occur in persons whose general constitution has 

 been weakened by a residence in an unhealthy climate, one charater- 

 istic of which is a feeble digestion. In such cases the patient is 

 subject to violent and long continued paroxysms of pain often confined 

 to one spot in the head. The plan of treatment above-mentioned is 

 of great use in relieving the symptoms, but change of air to a better 

 climate is sometimes found necessary." 



We can bear testimony to the extreme frequency of oedema 

 of the conjunctiva in common conjunctivitis : (p. 27.) 



