The Indian operation of couching for cataract

by Robert Henry Elliot

To

E. TREACHER COLLINS, Esq., f.r.c.s. eng.,

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE ASSISTANCE
WHICH HIS WORK ON THE PATHOLOGY OF THE EYE
HAS BEEN TO ALL WHO DESIRE TO ADVANCE THE
SCIENCE OF OPHTHALMOLOGY

PREFACE

It is a quarter of a century since I first landed in India. In common with very many other surgeons, my attention was early attracted to the operation of couching as performed by its Indian exponents, and I was horrified to see how bad the majority of the results were. It appeared to me that the outstanding need was for carefully compiled statistics, in order that a fair judgment might be formed on the subject. I divested my mind of partisanship and bias, and sought every opportunity to discuss the method and its results with anyone and everyone whose knowledge was likely to be of use to me in my quest, whether they were laymen or surgeons, Europeans or Indians, officials or non-officials. The office of Superintendent of the Government Ophthalmic Hospital, Madras, afforded an unrivalled field for work, and the staff of the hospital co-operated with me in a manner which I find it impossible to acknowledge suitably. My thanks are especially due to Lieutenant H. C. Craggs, Assistant-Surgeon C. Taylor, and Dr. Ekambaram, for the valuable help they gave me. After I left India, Captain W. C. Gray acted for me as Superintendent, and later Major H. Kirkpatrick succeeded me permanently. Both of these officers most generously placed the material of the hospital still at my disposal, and rendered me very valuable service in the study of my subject. The great majority of the microscopic slides were very beautifully prepared for me by Mr. W. Chesterman. I am also indebted to Mr. S. Stephenson and Mr. A. C. Hudson for very kindly sectioning some of the globes for me. The photographs, both macroscopic and microscopic, were taken by Mrs. Elliot, without whose help I could not have written the book. Mr. E. Treacher Collins has generously given me advice and assistance of the greatest value in the study of a number of the preparations, and I have acted freely on the suggestions he has been good enough to make. I desire to express to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England my acknowledgment of the honour they conferred on me by electing me to a Hunterian Professorship of the College. By the kindness of the authorities concerned, I have been enabled to include in this book articles which have appeared in the Lancet, in the Ophthalmic Record, and in the Proceedings of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom.

The collection of fifty-four eyeballs, on which the work for my Hunterian Lectures was founded, I have had the honour to present to the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. I think I am justified in claiming that it is unrivalled, and likely to remain so. At the suggestion of Sir John Bland-Sutton, I have endeavoured so to write the chapter on pathology that it may furnish a guide to any who care to study the subject within the walls of that museum. At the same time, I have striven to make it readable and of interest to those who have no such opportunity. In this the photographs have greatly helped me.

As I have already said, I have given nearly a quarter of a century’s intermittent work to elucidate these problems, which I felt were of wide interest, not merely to India or to the East alone, but to the whole civilized world. During the last two years I have devoted a very large proportion of my spare time continuously to the subject, but it is so immense and so far-reaching that I feel I have left much unfinished. On every hand fresh problems open up, till there seems no limit to what might be done, given time and opportunity. This operation of couching, so old that its origin is lost in the dim mists of antiquity, has still much that is new to be learnt for the seeking. There are many of the younger surgeons in the East who could carry the work much farther if they would, and who would be a hundred-fold repaid if they did. Will they?

ROBERT HENRY ELLIOT.

54, Welbeck Street,
Cavendish Square, W.,
1917.

CONTENTS