112 Ophthalmologische Mittheilungen, 1878, p. 97.
PELVIC CELLULITIS.—Still more frequently are the reflex eye disturbances caused by parametritis and the various forms of pelvic cellulitis. Every practitioner has had abundant opportunity of studying the easy fatigue of the eye, the burning and stinging conjunctival sensations, the orbital and periorbital pains, the retinal hyperæsthesia and sensitiveness to artificial light, which characterize the early stages of the affection, accompanied later on by symptoms of retinal anæsthesia. Inasmuch as the cause of these symptoms is irremediable, we find in the majority of cases that it is impossible to relieve the sufferings of the patient; this cause consisting in the cicatricial shrinking of the parametrium and the pelvic connective tissue. Sleep gives relief only so long as it lasts, and the patients upon awakening, instead of feeling rested, often experience their greatest pain and discomfort. Foerster113 and Freund, who were the first to demonstrate this form of parametritis, call special attention to the fact that the patients have their good and bad days entirely independent of any use of the eyes. In many of the milder cases, however, we find that the sufferings of the patients are enhanced and aggravated by the presence of some defect, such as astigmatism, hypermetropia, or insufficiency. Although the careful correction of such defects will give considerable relief and enable the patients to use their eyes for near work for a much longer period, nevertheless the pain and discomfort are out of all proportion to the amount of error. Of course, we are very far from having converted such eyes into useful instruments for every-day work or for long-continued labor, but we have removed an appreciable source of irritation from an oversensitive nervous system, and done much to relieve the toedium vitæ in cases which perhaps for months previously have been unable to amuse or occupy themselves by the use of their eyes in either reading, writing, or sewing.
113 "Allgemein-Leiden und Veränderungen des Sehorgans," in Graefe und Saemisch, vol. vii. pp. 88-96.
MASTURBATION is also an occasional cause of reflex eye disturbances. Mooren114 relates two aggravated cases in women who for years had been excessively addicted to the vice. In both of these there were accommodative asthenopia and tenderness in the ciliary region, dread even of moderate illumination, which increased from year to year. In both cases there were attacks of dyspnoea and other disturbance of innervation of the pneumogastric nerve. Cohn has also published a number of cases of eye disease in the male sex due to the same cause. The main symptoms were a feeling of pressure on the eyes, bright dots moving before them, and a sensation as if the air between the patient and the object looked at was wavy and trembling. In some of the individuals a discontinuance of onanism and a moderate indulgence in sexual intercourse effected a complete cure. Travers115 gives a case of loss of sight from excessive venery, and another from masturbation. Mackenzie116 quotes Dupuytren as relating the case of a man who lost his sight on the day after his wedding, but where it was promptly restored by the use of a cold bath with stimulants and the application of counter-irritation to the skin of the lumbar region. Foerster117 has recorded a case of kopiopia hysterica in a man where, from the eye symptoms alone, he diagnosticated disease of the genital organs, and where it was afterward proved that there was inability to copulate, the patient having extremely small testicles and there being a thin whey-like discharge from the urethra.
114 Loc. cit.
115 Synopsis of Diseases of the Eye, 1820, p. 145.
116 Diseases of the Eye, 1854, p. 1075.
117 G. u. S. Handb., vol. vii. p. 95.
CONGESTION AND INFLAMMATION OF THE OVARIES.—Disease of the ovaries is frequently associated with retinal oedema and hyperæsthesia. In women complaining of weak and painful eyes pressure in the ovarian region often causes pain. Where only one ovary is tender to the touch, we often notice that the patient complains more of the corresponding eye, although there may be no difference or abnormality in the ophthalmoscopic appearance of the two eyes. Under this head may be appropriately mentioned the eye symptoms of patients affected with hystero-epilepsy, a disease which is always associated with ovarian trouble, of which Charcot has given us so graphic a picture. He says that previous to the attack the patient experiences an aura which starts from the abdomen. The convulsion is ushered in by a loud cry, which is accompanied by pallor of the face and loss of consciousness. These symptoms are succeeded by twitching and rigidity of the face-muscles, with foaming at the mouth, followed by contortions of the muscles of the trunk, abdomen, and lower limbs, the paroxysm terminating with sobbing, weeping, and laughing. Landolt has given us a careful description of the eye symptoms in such cases, and groups them into four stages. In the first, the outer and inner tunics of the eye appear healthy and the acuity of vision is normal, but there is a contraction of the form- and color-folds, always more marked on the affected side. In the second group the acuity of vision begins to fail, and the symptoms become more marked on the hitherto sound side. In the third with the more affected eye fingers can scarcely be counted, while the field of vision is limited to a few degrees from the fixation point; at this stage the ophthalmoscope shows a serous swelling of the retina, with fulness and tortuosity of its veins. In the fourth stage there is a partial atrophy of the optic nerve on both sides.
PREGNANCY.—Cases of amaurosis occurring during pregnancy, in which the vision was impaired after delivery, are recorded by Beer, Ramsbotham,118 and other writers of the preophthalmoscopic period. Some of them, at least, may probably be accounted for by the occurrence of albuminuric retinitis in the puerperal state, but no such interpretation can be put on the more recent cases reported by Lawson119 and Eastlake,120 which in their main features strongly recall the amaurosis after loss of blood, although there is no history of any similar hemorrhages. In Lawson's case, we have an amaurosis which commenced during the gestation of the eighth child, and recurred during the ninth and tenth pregnancies. After the eighth labor the patient recovered sufficient sight to be able to sew; the amount of vision being gradually lessened after each gestation until finally complete atrophy of the optic nerve ensued. In Eastlake's case, the patient (æt. thirty-four) had borne nine children at full time. The labors were normal in character, and the amount of blood lost was not excessive. On the second or third days after the second and each subsequent delivery, sudden loss of vision occurred, and the woman became insensible. On recovering her consciousness, her sight did not at once return, the amaurosis remaining from three to five weeks. After the last labor there was complete and permanent loss of sight in both eyes: Z. Laurence examined this case with the ophthalmoscope, and reports only a slight contraction of the retinal arteries, without other positive lesion. Zehender,121 in treating of the subject, remarks that "almost every busy eye-surgeon has encountered similar sad cases."