In this review an attempt will be made to summarize the methods of treatment which are in general use or have been advocated for the more common forms of conjunctivitis.
It is difficult to evaluate these methods, owing to the dearth of well controlled clinical researches on conjunctivitis and the impossibility of estimating with any degree of accuracy the value of therapeutic procedures as tested in ordinary practice in the office or in the clinic. Opinion concerning the treatment of acute and subacute catarrhal conjunctivitis, which are characteristically self limited, must inevitably be questioned only with chronic conjunctivitis, which shows no tendency to spontaneous cure, or in special types of conjunctivitis the clinical course of which can be predicted may therapeutic efficacy safely be estimated. In view of the manifest difficulties inherent in therapeutic research on the conjunctiva, it is felt that all reports should be examined critically.