The Eye in General Medicine: The Constitutional Factor in the Causation of Diseases with Special Reference to the Treatment of Diseases of the Eye.

Abstract

Seemingly designed as a guide in ophthalmology for the general practitioner in medicine, this work emphasizes not the diagnosis of the ocular disease but rather the diagnosis of the underlying systemic condition, with especial attention to the specific gravity of the urine and to the importance of sending the patient to the seashore or the mountains. The diatribe against the valuation of modern laboratory observations must be sweet music in the ears of the old time general practitioner who believed in "laudable pus." Following each chapter, of which there are ten, is a short bibliography of references almost entirely British. The modern works on physiology of the eye that have emanated from other countries have evidently escaped the author's attention, although throughout the book he insists on the necessity of physiologic investigation of various ocular phenomena. The book consists of a mass of more or less uncorrelated statements dealing with