A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / To which is prefixed, an anatomical introduction explanatory of a horizontal section of the human eyeball, by Thomas Wharton Jones. From the 4th rev. and enl. London ed. With notes and additions by Addinell Hewson.
- William Mackenzie
- Date:
- 1855
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A practical treatise on the diseases of the eye / To which is prefixed, an anatomical introduction explanatory of a horizontal section of the human eyeball, by Thomas Wharton Jones. From the 4th rev. and enl. London ed. With notes and additions by Addinell Hewson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.
694/1074 (page 686)
![The liumoi's are absorbed in proportion to the pressure of the tumor; and in cases where it has burst through the sclerotica or cornea, they are gene- rally altogether destroyed. I believe that, on minute examination, it will rarely be found that the optic nerve, exterior to the eye, presents a healthy structure. It will, in general, be found thicker than natural, softer, of a yellowish color, and pre- senting, instead of bundles of nervous filaments interlaced together, as it ought to do, a uniform pulpy substance. In some cases, the nerve is found to be split into several pieces, the growth filling up the intervening spaces, surrounding the several portions of the nerve, and forming one connected mass with the morbid contents of the eyeball. The diseased state of the nerve will in general be found to extend to that portion of it which is contained within the cranium; and in many cases the brain itself is afTected, being changed into a soft pulpy mass, and presenting cavities, either in the substance of the part which has suffered the spongoid degeneration, or around it, filled with blood. The disease in the brain seems secondary to that in the eye; but the affection of the brain may kill, before the eye is at all enlarged. Greatly shrunk after death, and its dark red color changed to a pale hue, the tumor varies in appearance in different cases; but has always more or less resemblance to the medullary substance of the brain, being in general opaque, whitish, homogeneous, and pulpy. It consists of cellular membrane, brain- like matter, consisting of microscopic cells and nuclei, and bloodvessels.** Like brain, it becomes soft when exposed to the air, mixes readily with cold water, and dissolves in it; while in alcohol or acids, it becomes firm, or even hard. When the softer parts are washed away in water, or when the mass is forcibly compressed, the more solid parts remain, and are found to consist of a filamentous substance, resembling cellular membrane. The consistence of the tumor varies, to a certain extent, in different cases, and in different parts of the same mass, being in some as fluid as cream, in others firmer than the most solid parts of a fresh brain. In some rare instances, gritty ])articles, probably bony, have been found interspersed through the morbid growth. The color of the tumor, although commonly that of the medullary substance of the brain, or a very little darker, is sometimes redder, or even of a dark- brown color, while, in the advanced stage, it often presents portions which nearly resemble clots of blood. When the absorbent gland lying over the parotid, or any of the absorbent glands of the neck, are enlarged in this disease, they are found to be con- verted into a substance resembling in every respect that which com})oses the tumor of the eyeball and brain. In come cases, the glands ulcerate before death, forming very unhealthy, sloughy sores; but most frequently the patient dies before the skin covering the glandular swellings is destroyed. Mr. Ward- rop mentions, that after the skin covering such contaminated glands had given way, he never observed any fungus to arise from them. In a case related by Mr. Saunders, this disease occurred first in one eye, and six months after, in the other also. I saw it, nearly equally advanced, in both eyes of a child. A similar instance is noticed by Mr. Stevenson. On examining the bodies of those who die of spongoid tumor of the eye, the same disease is sometimes discovered in the viscera of the abdomen or thorax ; especially in the liver, kidneys, uterus, or lungs. The brain and the testicle are parts very subject to be attacked by it, and I have found it de- veloped even in the walls of the heart. The eye is certainly the i)art of the body most liable to this disease. Sithject^.—Encephaloid tumor is much more frequent in children than in adults. Out of 24 cases which had come to Mr. Wardrop's knowledge, 20](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21014760_0694.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
