Puncture of the cornea and iridectomy have been strongly advocated on the ground that the disease is identical with glaucoma, but the burden of evidence is decidedly against their use as a regular method of treatment. In case of increased intraocular tension, however, the puncture of the cornea can be very profitably employed, but it should be reserved for such special cases. Theoretically, iridectomy should be advantageous in preventing a relapse, but experience has not fully sustained this. When employed, the most careful disinfection should be secured. Under rational treatment the attack subsides in ten days and the eye may appear to be restored to the normal condition in two weeks. This natural tendency to a temporary recovery has served to give a wide acceptance to the most irrational methods of treatment, which have not in any sense hastened the recovery.
As soon as active inflammation and hyperthermia subside, every attention should be given to prevent a relapse, and to this end all the measures mentioned under prevention and which can be applied to the individual case should be adopted. Among these, moderate exercise or regular work must never be omitted.
A course of tonics embracing preparations of iron and bitters, is equally essential, and may be begun as soon as fever and active inflammation subside.
Special lesions, like corneal opacities and ulcers, must be treated as in other affections.
Jurisprudence. The question of the right to return upon the seller a horse attacked with recurrent ophthalmia has been beset with difficulty, mainly because of the intermissions during which, to the ordinary observer, the eyes may appear sound. In France a period of thirty days is allowed in which to return such a horse after purchase. This is, however, too narrow a margin as the second attack may not appear until after two, four or six months. It does, however, provide for the return of the worst cases in which the recurrence is likely to take place at an early date. Another provision is that a suspected horse may be put in pound under veterinary observation for thirty days, in anticipation of a second attack, and if such fails to appear the purchaser is debarred from returning him.
In many cases the symptoms during an attack and between attacks are such as to identify the recurrent inflammation, and the expert can pronounce positively as to the nature of the malady. In other cases there is a degree of uncertainty, and the animal must either be returned on the general plea of diseased eyes, if they can be shown to have been faulty at the time of sale, or otherwise the horse must be put in the hands of a veterinarian and the seller notified of the action, until it can be shown whether it is the recurrent disease or not. If it can be shown that the disease is the recurrent affection the seller is responsible at common law for selling a diseased animal for a sound one. If on the other hand, it is a non-specific ophthalmia, it must be shown that it existed prior to sale, and that a warranty of soundness was given, in order to hold the seller responsible.
PANOPHTHALMITIS.
General suppurative inflammation of eye. Experimental cases. From traumas. Diagnosis; foul wound, violent eye inflammation, yellow purulent appearance, high fever, involves second eye. Treatment: antiseptic, enucleation.
This term has been applied to a general purulent inflammation of the eye resulting from infection with pus germs entering from without through traumatic injuries, or by reason of inflamed tissues, or on the other hand, reaching the eye as a general infection through the blood. It may begin therefore, as conjunctivitis, scleritis, or keratitis, and gradually extend to active infection of the iris, choroid, and ciliary body.
Möller produced an experimental case in a foal by the injection of the staphylococcus pyogenes aureus into the anterior chamber. In 24 hours there was violent inflammation: the eyelids were closed, the conjunctiva dark red, and a mass of glairy pus under the eyelid. The cornea was cloudy throughout, though still dimly transparent so that the accumulating pus in the anterior chamber could be seen. The iris was strongly dilated and the eyeball abnormally tense. The second day the bulb was visibly enlarged, the eyelids greatly swollen, the conjunctiva infiltrated so as to cause chemosis, and the cornea completely opaque. The infiltration of the orbit caused the eyeball to protrude from its sheath. A high fever set in and on the fifth day the foal died.