76 Separat Abdruck aus dem Deutschen Arch. f. klin. Med., Bd. xxi. pp. 100, 101, Plates vii. and viii.
77 Annales d'Oculistique, 1875, pp. 1-14.
78 "Sitzungsbericht der Ophth. Gesellschaft," in Klin. Monatsblätter f. Augenheilk., 1871, p. 385.
79 Klin. Monats. f. Augenheilk., pp. 383-385.
80 A. f. O., xix. 3, pp. 303, 304.
Diseases of the Organs of Respiration.
Diseases of the organs of respiration appear to have little direct influence upon the nutrition of the eye, except in so far as they cause venous stasis by obstruction of the circulation through the lungs. Jaeger was the first to call attention to this fact in cases of pneumonia and pleurisy. The stasis manifests itself by an increase in the calibre of the veins, with a broadening of the light-reflex from them and a marked change in the color of the blood, causing the venous columns to become dark bluish-red. The writer has often seen this condition well marked in cases where there was not sufficient interference with the oxidation of the blood to cause an appreciable cyanosis of the skin. A higher degree of impeded circulation in the lung doubtless gives rise to the retinal hemorrhages, which, according to Foerster, are not infrequent in emphysema. Schreiber81 mentions that in the hectic fever of phthisis the dilatation of the retinal vessels causes a congested appearance of the eye-ground, in marked contrast with the anæmic pallor of the skin of the patients. In 1871, Horner82 published 31 cases of herpes corneæ occurring either during the course of severe catarrhal affections of the respiratory organs or immediately following such attacks. The eruption, which first appeared upon the lips, and then upon the eyeball, usually took place after the culmination of the febrile symptoms. The progress of the affection is slow, the ulcers left by the bursting of the vesicles healing in a period varying from two to six weeks. The herpes was monolateral, except in one case of double pneumonia in a drunkard, where the eruption occupied the entire central area of both corneæ. In preophthalmoscopic times Sichel called attention to blindness after pneumonia and bronchial catarrh, which he thought was due to cerebral congestions occurring in the height of these diseases.83 He considered these congestions harmless so long as the patients remained quiet under antiphlogistic treatment, but deemed them noxious in their influence upon the eye as soon as freedom was allowed. Seidel84 relates cases of amblyopia with contracted pupils and eyeballs which were painful on the slightest pressure. He says that coincident with croupous pneumonia on the fifth day there was color-blindness, followed two days later by a disappearance of the amblyopia, with a return of the pupils to their normal size.
81 Veränderungen des Augenhinter-qrundes bei Internen Erkrankungen, 1878, p. 87.
82 "Bericht der Ophth. Gesellschaft," in Klin. Monatsblätt., 1871, pp. 326-328.
83 Zehender, Handbuch der Augenheilkunde, vol. ii. pp. 188, 189.