DEPARTMENT OF SURGERY. . 
547 
foreign bodies are only detected by careful inspection, aided by 
whatever means can conveniently be used to make a good ex¬ 
amination. 
The treatment in such instances consists of nothing more 
than the removal of all foreign substances by the most conserva¬ 
tive means, making the wound aseptic and preventing infection. 
Foreign Bodies Within the Eyeball are more serious 
than those lodged in the coats of the eye. Any small, hard 
object, such as pieces of glass or stone ; spicula of steel, iron, 
brass or copper, or splinters of wood, may be forced through the 
coats into some of the structures within. They most frequently 
enter through the anterior part of the eye—cornea or corneo¬ 
scleral margin. 
The most important features in connection with these 
wounds are, the size of the object, the immediate effect upon 
vision, the direction and course of the object and its location. 
If the object cannot be located and if on its course it has de¬ 
stroyed the lens and let the humor escape the sight cannot be 
restored, and the only method to adopt in such instances is 
enucleation or evisceration. Penetrating wounds in the eyes of 
domestic animals are always very serious, but when the object 
does not go beyond the anterior chamber or iris, it can be re¬ 
moved and the wound treated as a penetrating wound. If the 
wound can be made aseptic, the sight may be restored, leaving 
but a cicatrix in the external surface of the eyeball. The course 
to adopt in such cases is to learn the extent of the injury and to 
adopt conservative surgery. An attempt may be made to save 
the eye when there is a possible chance to do so ; but if there is 
no possible chance of restoring vision, the eyeball should be 
enucleated or eviscerated. 
SURGICAL ITEMS. 
“ A New Name for an Old Operation .”—The new (?) 
method of performing tracheotomy, described for McKillip in 
the September number of the Review, has been in use for more 
than a quarter of a century—tube and all. Moller, Cadiot, 
Chauveau, Hoffmann, Dick and others, all refer to transverse 
tracheotomy through the inter-cartilaginous bands, but since 
these surgeons and writers have found no occasion nor thought 
it worth while to claim it as their own artifice, we presume that 
no exception will be taken to the new nomenclature.—(A. A. 
M.) 
