Dear Doctor: Concerning the discussion of Maddox Rod vs. Phorometer about which you wrote me—can say that I believe that the Maddox rod is the more reliable test. My reasons on theoretical grounds for so believing are briefly these.
Given a case for examination; the test which least disturbs the muscular co-ordination under investigation must give the best result. Now I think that when we throw the images into non-corresponding retinal points that we almost certainly cause some tension of certain muscles, because it is putting the eyes in an unnatural relation with one another; and this is done by the phorometer. The Maddox rod is theoretically free from this objection.
Practically the deviations are more certainly measured, because a patient knows when the streak cuts the light; and you cannot trust their eye alone to tell when the lights are exactly in a line. Have used both tests in every case I have examined in my private practice, and I find the Maddox the more reliable test. It is more to be depended upon.
Edw. Hill Baldwin.
ABSTRACTS FROM CURRENT LITERATURE.
Grant, Dundas.—Case of Emphysema of the Orbital Wall of the Anterior Ethmoidal Cells, Caused by blowing the Nose.—Jour. Lar., Rhin. and Otol., March, 1900.
This case was shown to the British Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Association.
W. M., twenty-eight years, came under my care yesterday on account of a sudden swelling of his eye which had taken place two hours previously, and which had occurred suddenly as he was blowing his nose without a handkerchief, and which gave him the impression as if something were running out of his eye. The swelling crackled in a manner characteristic of emphysema, and the first suspicion was that he must have had some disease of the orbital wall of the anterior ethmoidal cells, and that on examination there would be found some evidence of ethmoidal disease. None such was to be elicited, and the only history obtainable was that he received several kicks on the nose and back of the ear two months ago. This has probably resulted in a fracture of the orbital wall of certain of these cells.
Palmer.