Cataract and its treatment Author:John Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: benefit as he may have been led to expect; and perhaps reflections may be cast upon the surgeon unless this condition has been previously ascertained and its con... more »sequences pointed out. The extent to which the outline of objects can be perceived, and the mobility of the pupil, are the chief signs on which a correct prognosis of the case may be formed. Congenital Catahact. Congenital cataract may be either partial or complete, it may be lenticular or capsulo-lenticular, but it is always either soft or fluid, therefore of a white colour, and more or less densely white in proportion to the degree in which the capsule is rendered opake. The lens is usually rather smaller than natural, and the anterior chamber consequently somewhat larger. If the cataract remain for some years undisturbed, the substance of the lens will usually have been absorbed, the opake capsule only remaining; these cases are not now so frequently met with as they formerly were, when the mode of removing the disease was not so generally known as it now is. The infant is remarked not to take notice of objects that are presented to him, and to roll the eyes about as it were involuntarily. This leads to an examination of them, when the white opacity in the pupil is readily detected, but its extent can be accurately ascertained only when the eye is under the influence of belladonna. The only affection with which this is liable to be confounded in the infant is that of disease of the internal textures of the eye, in consequence of which the lens becomes opake. Here, however, it is also observed to be at the same time thrust forward, causing the iris to project into the anterior chamber, and the pupil is fixed and motionless, the iris being likewise altered in colour. In the opinion of Professor Walther, ...« less