Southern Medical and Surgical Journal - Georgia Regents University

1852.] Dugas' Surgical Cases. 4Q5The reporter finds in the Southern Medical and SurgicalJournal, for 1838, (vol. 2, p. 647,) several cases recorded, inwhich Prof. Dugas resorted to excision of the cornea for thepurpose of relieving great localpain and constitutional disturbanceconsequent upon a disorganization of the contents of theeye.Whenever the eye is irretrievably lost and proves a sourceof serious annoyance. Prof. D. thinks that it should be at onceemptied, both as a measure of relief, and as a security againstsymoathetic disease in the sound organ. He has never foundany bad effects from such a course.Case II.Ex-ophthalmia caused hy a tumor in the orbit.—Peter, a negro boy about 5 years of age, had been sufferingfor a number of months v/ith pain in the left eye, and with agradual impairment of its vision. Placed in charge of Prof.Dugas on the 6th January, 1848, the eye was found to protrudeso much that the eye-lids could not cover any portion ofthe cornea; this was opaque and the conjunctiva highly injected; vision was and had been for some time entirely lost. Theopacity of the cornea prevented the condition of the humors ofthe eye from being seen. The boy suffered incessantly mostexcruciating pain in the eye and in the front of the head, which,added to febrile excitement, loss of sleep and impaired appetite,had very much reducedhim.After watching the case for a few days. Prof. D. determinedto excise the cornea and to empty the eye.by only temporary relief.This was followedIn a iew weeks the sunken eye beganto protrude again ; the pain in the forehead returned, andincreased in severity, if possible. The boy became delirious,and gradually comatose,and died in March, after being apparentlyat the point of death for a month.The existence of a tumor of some kind behind the eye becameevident, upon the reprotrusion of this organ, but its naturewas uncertain, and the brain had become too much implicatedto warrant an attempt to relieve the patient by extirpation ofthe contents of the orbit.Post-mortem examination revealed the presence of a fibroustumor in the orbit, which, in pressing the eye forward, had putthe optic nerve very much upon the stretch.N. S. VOL. VIII. NO. VII. 26Within the cra-