CLINICAL FORMS OF PANOPHTHALMITIS OBSERVED 
IN THE PHILIPPINE GENERAL HOSPITAL 
By Dr. A. R. Ubaldo 
Very little has been written with regard to panophthalmitis 
in the literature of the past years. Altogether seventy cases 
have been observed in the Philippine General Hospital during 
the period from 1917 to 1919 — twenty-one in 1917, twenty-one 
in 1918, and twenty-eight in 1919. These cases of panopthal- 
mitis ended in total blindness, and this disease is responsible 
for the greater percentage of blindness caused by ocular diseases. 
Inflammation of the eyeball, in which the infection is localized, 
may start from the anterior chamber and extend to the posterior 
and to the vitreous, involving the neighboring structures of the 
uveal tract, choroid, and retina. All of this constitutes what 
we call panophthalmitis. In fewer words, panophthalmitis is 
inflammation of all the structures of the eyeball. 
Inflammation in such cases is produced by infection, which 
may have two ways of gaining entrance into the eye; namely, 
infections coming from the outside, as in all cases of traumatism 
of the eyeball, perforating ulcers with rupture of the eyeball, etc., 
known as ectogenous in origin ; and internal infections, or 
infections conveyed to the eye through the circulating blood 
as in septicaemia, pyaemia, and suppuration of other structures, 
which are known as endogenous in origin; and in such infec- 
tions the eyeball appears to be intact and without rupture. 
BACTERIOLOGY 
The microorganisms found are very numerous, but the most 
frequent are : Staphylococcus, streptococcus, pneumococcus, 
Bacillus xerosis, Diplobacillus moraz Axenfeld, Bacillus subtilis, 
and Bacillus pyocyaneus. 
Infections of the cornea by pneumococcus and diplobacillus 
were the cause of most of the cases of ulcus serpens. Out of 
eighty-five cases of hypopyon keratitis examined by Axenfeld, 
fifty-five were caused by pneumococcus and twenty-five by diplo- 
bacillus. 
Staphylococcus, streptococcus, and Bacillus subtilis are mostly 
found in traumatic wounds. 
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