Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye, 211 



under the head of amaurosis, given a short account of an epidemic in 

 which the eyes were in many of the cases attacked with this 

 cachectic inflammation. In other patients the disease was produced 

 in the course of other debilitating diseases, of which the following is 

 an example — 



Nujooh, set. 30, was admitted into the hospital with phagidemic 

 ulcers over the body. They appeared as indolent boils which burst, 

 and terminated in ulcers. In this state of disease and great weakness, 

 his bowels became deranged, and the disease terminated in dysentery. 

 His eyes became next very irritable, and the conjunctiva red, especi- 

 ally round the cornea. In examining the cornea it was found of a 

 muddy-white appearance, from the thickening, which was parti- 

 cularly white and opaque near the centre of each cornea. The usual 

 treatment was employed in vain, and the patients sunk, reduced to a 

 skeleton. 



I carefully examined both eyes after death. In each there was a 

 thickening and milky whiteness of the conjunctiva covering the 

 cornea, which could be torn, from the clear cornea underneath for 

 two-thirds of the space from the circumference to the centre of the 

 cornea. Near the centre, the milky-like appearance also increased, 

 and in each eye a layer of purulent interlamellar matter had formed, 

 softened, and terminated in an irregular ulcer externally, and at the 

 point it had penetrated through the cornea. Had the person lived, 

 this inflammation would have been followed by an extension of the 

 ulceration, and eventually, in all probability, by the destruction of 

 both eyes. 



The treatment of this form of disease is difficult, and the result 

 very uncertain, for while the system is to be supported by light 

 nourishing food, and attention paid to the abdominal secretions and 

 discharges, the local disease must be carefully attended to. The 

 importance of the organ, which is in such a dangerous state, must be 

 treated without reference to the general state of the system. In 

 many cases the pain, intolerence of light, inflammatory redness and 

 hot tears, indicates the employment of leeches. I have often used 

 with the best effects, blisters — at a distance from the eye, so as not to 

 cause an cedematous swelling round that organ, and a careful atten- 

 tion to the state of the bowels. When this treatment has been 



