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To the Editor:—Dr. Wheeler's paper read before the Section on Ophthalmology at the last annual session of the American Medical Association and published in the October issue of the Archives (16: 569, 1936) as well as the discussion following it ask for a comment.
The first to combine an iridectomy with a cyclodialysis was Czermak. His method was difficult—Czermak had a flair for highly complicated operations, for example, his subconjunctival extraction of cataract—and was published in 1906, the year of his untimely death. Elschnig modified Czermak's procedure.
Dr. Wheeler took pains to point out that his combined operation is a far more mutilating process than a Lagrange or an Elliot operation or an iridencleisis. I cannot well imagine this to be the consensus of ophthalmologists. The cyclodialysis, unless clumsily performed, is the nonmutilating operation for glaucoma; the only possible damage one can do is a peeling off of Descemet's