Read before the Chicago Medical Society, January 17, 1887.
BY W. FRANKLIN COLEMAN, M.D., M.R.C.S., Eng.
PROFESSOR EYE AND EAR DISEASES, CHICAGO POLICLINIC.
The terrible affliction blindness is so frequently caused by an injury to the eye, which results in the destruction of its fellow, and the treatment of the injured organ places so great a responsibility upon the physician that the introduction of the subject, " Sympathetic Ophthalmia," for our mutual discussion and profit, needs no apology. Several evenings and an audience could easily be exhausted in justice to the theme, but regard for yourselves and time compels a very imperfect sketch. While some authors use the term Sympathetic Ophthalmia synonymously with Sympathetic Ophthalmitis, others use it generically to include " Sympathetic Irritation" and " Sympathetic Inflammation."
These affections are induced in the sympathizing eye by some organic lesion of its companion. In the vast majority of cases the