AIDING SIGHT

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 129, 25 February 1938, Page 2

AIDING SIGHT

Spots In Eye Pupil Gilded Dr. Ramon Castroviejo, of Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, who was one of tne’ first t 0 transplant corneas from dead embryos to living eyes that needed repairing, is gliding and platinising corneas to Improve vision. Sometimes opaque spots develop on the pupil. They disperse light and thus interfere with clear seeing. As far back as the second century A.D., the great physician Galen daringly tried to correct the condition by fusing copper salts with pomegranate bark on the opaque spots. He used a hot iron. Object: To HU the spaces between the spots and allow the light to pass through a clear area without blurring effects. Gilding or platinising is safer than hot irons. Also easier. The effect is purely chemical. Gold and silver are applied in chloride solutions. When adrenalin chloride is added, the gold is precipitated as a dark spot just where it is wanted. Sometimes indin ink Is used to correct the white or pink eyes of albinoes. When the whole cornea is afflicted ■ with the condition "popularly known as “wall-eye,” gilding and platinising are useless. There is nothing for it but to transplant sections of healthy corneas from those who have just died to living but clouded eyes. Professor V. P. Filatov, of Odessa, has transplanted about 400 corneas from dead to live eyes. But whether vision l» thus permandiitly restored can be determined only lifter years of observation.