Ophthalmia : the various inflammations of the conjunctiva or mucous membrane of the eye / by J. Slade.

  • Slade, J.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ophthalmia : the various inflammations of the conjunctiva or mucous membrane of the eye / by J. Slade. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    By classifying^'diseases in the manner proposed, we certainly arrive at more definable limits, and render ourselves better acquainted with the real nature of disease, in its vast variety of shades. The conjunctiva is liable to as many different kinds of inflammation as any tunic of the body, except the skin, yet par- taking in common with the skin of many of its diseases. Being a mucous membrane, it is also subject to the affections, inflam- matory or not, that other mucous tissues are. It is, therefore, the seat of numerous diseases, and liable to be frequently affected. Being in close connection with the subjacent tissues, it is impossible for inflammation to attack it violently without one or the other, if not all, of these tissues partici- pating. Yet such is the situation of this membrane—such the facility we possess in being able to reach it—such the advan- tages we enjoy in distinguishing its different affections—such the structure of the whole part, that we have seldom occasion to fear any great severity and consequent extension of its inflammations, on proper and prompt treatment being resorted to. Without this treatment, the consequences are often irre- parable, the inflammation extending itself to parts which are more vitally important. The several kinds of conjunctivitis take their peculiar and respective characters from the nature of the cause which might happen to have produced them. Thus, a scrofulous constitu- tion will produce a scrofulous ophthalmia or conjunctivitis; moist and cold atmosphere a catarrhal; syphilis, a syphilitic; discharges from the vagina of women in childbirth, a purulent form in the infant, commonly called purulent ophthalmia of new-born infants; while a constitution incHned to that peculiar kind of inflammation called erysipelous, will occasion an erysipelatous form of conjunctivitis. Hence we see that an inflammation is different, agreeably to the character of the exciting cause; and it is the peculiar set of features which presents itself on the operation of these respective causes, that