Muscae volitantes: A 19th-century precursor of visual snow syndrome?

Purpose: Visual snow syndrome comprises a whole-field static-like visual disturbance, with increased awareness of entopic phenomena, an inability to suppress the 'just seen' and photophobia. Visual snow syndrome is often associated with other problems such as headache, tinnitus, and anxiety. The earliest reported case of a patient experiencing symptoms consistent with visual snow syndrome dates only to 1995. This paper seeks to find patterns of experience in the medical literature of the past that are reminiscent of visual snow syndrome, to challenge the view that it is in any sense a novel disorder. Descriptions of subjective visual sensations such as experienced by patients suffering from visual snow syndrome were sought in treatises, textbooks and other literature generated by leading figures in 19th-century ophthalmology, physiology and physics.

Conclusion: While retrospective diagnosis of modern illness categories in historical medical literature is an enterprise fraught with pitfalls, it is nonetheless possible to see patterns of experience in the 19th-century medical literature that are strongly reminiscent of visual snow syndrome.