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To the Editor:
—In the July, 1961, Archives there is an article, "Microscopic Findings in Scleral Shell After Evisceration," by Richard D. Richards, M.D., of Baltimore. We would take exception to this article practically in toto. Our combined personal clinical experience with this procedure exceeds 500 cases. During the period in which these cases were performed (now more than 20 years) there has been no case of sympathetic ophthalmia noted, nor has there been any case in which the scleral shell demanded excision because of intractable pain. There are several points in the article which deserve further comment.
The case report noted is of a 49-year-old melanotic with a history of absolute glaucoma for which an evisceration was performed in May, 1959. The case report states that the eye was small and shrunken, even though an 18 mm. plastic ball was inserted. An 18 mm. plastic ball within a scleral