Hospital Cleanings

Abstract

soan the nAt eye of a patient named Thomas, nealy two ago, by etaction, the lens being had, and the capsue (len?) aecd. The capsule (lens ) of the left eye ws distinctly opaque at its circumference, as in Plate iii, Fig. & On exam.iing the eye lately, having previously dilted the pupil by the belladouna, the capsle was free from opacity. " I have, seen the same disappearance of an incipient opacty in two other cases, and in one of these I had reason to suspect a commencing opacity of the lens." Mr. Guthrie believed the incipient opacities in these eas to have been seated in the capsule. His drawing, however, proves beyond a doubt that some of the superficial ibres of the lens, and not the capsule, were the seat of cstaract. In fact, this observing surgeon appears to have had doubts, at a later period of his experience, in regard to the accuracy of his diagnosis; and has, with that love of truth which characterised his whole professional life, expressed them in a foot-note to pages 243-4 of the work I have quoted. Mr. Guthrie was opposed to operative interference in eases of single cataract. Although he records four cases in which an operation upon a fully formed catarat did not pvent the progress of an incipient one in its companion, he declares in another page of his work (276): "1 am satisfied that, in some instances, the removal of a cataract in one eye by operation will cause the disappearance of an opacity in the other. I am led to this conclusion from having seen it in a sufficient number of instances to establish the fact."