Rydel,1 professor of ophthalmology at Krakow, Poland, was apparently the first to make exact observations on postoperative glaucoma. And in 1865 Sir William Bowman2 warned that "the vitreous humor should not be encouraged to come through the opening made in the capsule . . . wide excursions of the needle . . . are apt to disturb the vitreous and cause it to press thence afterwards through the pupil occasioning irritation of the iris by displacement, and sometimes consequent heightened globe-tension of the glaucomatous type. . . . Such glaucomatous tension is particularly apt to come on after needle operations."
In 1869 von Graefe3 called attention to glaucoma following cataract extraction and discission and noted that it more frequently followed discission after simple extraction than discission after combined operations. He attributed the glaucoma to two causes: (1) the retention from secondary capsular cataract of cortical material, which after needling is liable to swell and