Many remedies have been proposed for the treatment of herpetic keratitis. The medicament most widely in use is tincture of iodine. Others which have been advocated are 90 per cent alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, fresh chlorine water phenol, trichloroacetic acid, copper sulfate stick, ethylmorphine hydrochloride, mercurochrome and quinine bisulfate. This is a preliminary report on the results secured by applying anesthetic ether directly to herpetic lesions of the cornea.
As Grüter1 established in 1920, the organism causing the herpetic lesions is a specific virus which is transmissible from man to animals. There is a relation among the various forms of herpes, i. e., herpes labialis, herpes facialis and herpes genitalis. The virus itself is an ultramicroscopic filter-passing organism. In the cornea the organism causes small grayish translucent infiltrates, which lie beneath the epithelium and elevate it. These elevations are associated with each other in irregular branching lines. They are frequently