§ 784. The degenerative influence on the organ of sight is shown in six of Dr. Robertson’s patients, whose insanity was ascribed to lead—four of the six were either totally or partially blind.
The amaurosis has been known to come on suddenly, and after a very brief exposure to lead, e.g., a man, thirty-four years of age, after working for three days in a white-lead factory, was seized with intense ciliary neuralgia, had pains in his limbs and symptoms of lead-poisoning, and the right eye became amaurotic.[846] This form of impairment or loss of vision is different from the Retinitis albuminurica,[847] which may also be produced as a secondary effect of the poison; the kidneys in such cases being profoundly affected. The kind of diseased kidney produced by lead is the granular contracted kidney.
[846] Samelsohn, Monatsbl. f. Augenheilk., vol. xi. p. 246, 1873. See also a case of lead amaurosis, described by Mr. W. Holder, Pharm. Journ., Oct. 14, 1876.
[847] Ran, Arch. f. Ophthal., vol. i. (2), p. 205, 1858, and Schmidt’s Jahrbuch, Bd. cxxxiii. p. 116; Bd. cxliii. p. 67.
Eulenberg speaks of the sexual functions being weakened, leading to more or less impotence.
Lewy,[848] in 1186 patients suffering from lead-poisoning, has found caries or necrosis in twenty-two cases, or about 1·8 per cent.; fifteen were carious affections of the upper jaw, four of the fore-arm, two of the thigh, and one of the rib and sternum. Epilepsy and epileptiform convulsions occur in a few cases; it is very possible that the epilepsy may be a result of the uræmic poisoning induced by diseased kidneys.
[848] Die Berufskrank. d. Bleiarbeiter, Wien, 1873, S. 61.