Outer Eye Research Articles

Yeasts in banal external ocular inflammations.

In 53 out of 313 patients suffering from longstanding inflammations of the outer eye or dacryocanaliculitis, not yielding to the obligate treatment with antibiotics and steroids, yeasts were isolated and regarded as the causative agents. Among the yeasts, different Candida species were prevalent, with C. albicans and C. guillermondii at the top. An obstinate, superificial epithelial and subepithelial punctate keratitis appeared to represent an entity pathognomonic of a yeast infection. Eradication of the yeasts and cure of the inflammation was achieved only by intensive prolonged treatment with Mycostatin or amphotericin B.

Cartilage induction by retinal pigmented epithelium of chick embryo

The pigmented epithelium of the retina in chick embryos has been shown to be necessary for the normal development of scleral cartilage. It has also been reported that pigmented epithelium can induce cartilage formation in the chorioallantoic membrane of chicks. Using the embryos of a white Leghorn strain of domestic fowl, stage 25 (5 day) pigmented epithelium alone, stage 17–23 (2 1/2–4day) periocular mesenchyme alone, and stage 25 pigmented epithelium combined with stage 17–18 periocular mesenchyme were grown on the chorioallantoic membrane and were examined histologically for the presence of cartilage after an appropriate period. Stage 25 pigmented epithelium grafted alone was not associated with cartilage, nor was stage 17 and stage 18 periocular mesenchyme. Cartilage did appear when these two tissues were grown in combination. The significance of these findings is discussed briefly. These results confirm and extend knowledge of the inductive influence of the pigmented epithelium in the development of the chick outer eye wall.

Distribution of xerophthalmia among children in the traditional quranic schools in Al-Gezira State of Sudan

Background: Vitamin A deficiency is considered a serious public health issue in poor nations, which leads to corneal opacity and results in childhood blindness in most of the low-income countries. Aim: To determine the prevalence of xerophthalmia among children at traditional Quranic schools in Al-Gezira state of Sudan. Materials and Methods: This was a quantitative cross-sectional study conducted on 822 children aged from 5 to 15 years, living in traditional Quranic schools. The clinical examinations for all children in this study include the demographics of patients (name, gender, age, and duration of students in schools), symptoms (vision during the day and night), and then outer eye checked for all children by lope and magnifier and visual acuity using Snellen's chart. Results: The prevalence of night blindness, conjunctival xerosis, corneal xerosis, and Bitot's spots was 17.3%, 20.3%, 0.2%, and 0.7%, respectively. There was a significant association between the duration of staying the children at the schools and the development of night blindness (P ≤ 0.02). Conclusion: Children of this community are susceptible to xerophthalmia because food is inadequate of Vitamin A. The governmental and nongovernmental organization should supply this community by the diet rich of Vitamin A and Vitamin A supplementation orally for affected children as well as annually comprehensive eye examinations.

The Intelligible and The Absurd

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.e. e. cummingsThere are many points of view from which one might enjoy pondering the intelligible and the absurd. I am going to tackle absurdity in three ways: as (a) the residue left in reality after intelligibility has been exhausted; (b) the complement of intelligibility; and (c) as a mode of intelligibility (which is one of the absurdest words in the language, when you come to look at it).Although no doubt it raises all sorts of problems to talk like this, it does seem that one can meaningfully say that there is a certain intelligibility built into reality. This would appear to be involved in any doctrine of creation, whether Platonist or otherwise.To start with ‘otherwise’: in English we more naturally talk of people understanding one another, than of understanding nonpersonal objects, trees for instance; as against Platonist thought, where the object of intellection is generally non-personal.Understanding each other means, let us say, being on each other’s wavelength, speaking the same language, and so on. It has something to do with the old definition of friendship as idem sentire and so on. I see what you mean’ does not merely indicate that I, with my inner eye, perceive your meaning; it also suggests that with my outer eye I see things from your point of view, with your perspective: we share for a while a common vision.

Fungi from the Normal Outer Eye

With the recognition of mycotic keratitis as a major ocular disease, there has been in­ creasing interest in the fungi associated with the healthy eye. Studies from diverse geo­ graphical areas indicate that fungi occur in none to 28% of normal outer eyes. These data are usually based on single culturings of a varying number of conjunctival sacs. The organisms isolated represent a broad spec­ trum of molds and yeastlike fungi, some of which, such as Aspergillus and Candida spp., have been isolated from keratomycoses. It has been suggested that a native fungal flora may represent the source of infection in my­ cotic keratitis and postoperative fungal endophthalmitis. The existence of an indigenous bacteria flora of the normal outer eye, composed mainly of micrococci and diptheroids, has been established by repetitive cultures by nu­ merous investigators. Unequivocable evi­ dence for an indigenous fungal flora of the normal eye has not been established. This study was undertaken to ascertain the inci­ dence and persistence of fungi in the envi­ rons of the normal outer eye.

Lens development: III. Relationship between the growth of the lens and the growth of the outer eye coat

This investigation explored the relationships which exist between the growth of the lens and the growth of the outer eye coat (cornea plus sclera) during the development of the chick embryo eye. By introducing one end of a minute glass drainage tube through the eye wall at 4 days of incubation, vitreous substance was allowed to escape as it formed. Intubated eyes increased in overall size at rates which ranged from normal to very slow. Consequently, by 16 days of incubation the group of intubated eyes had achieved widely differing sizes, despite the fact that they were all of the same chronological age. In the first of two experiments, the total protein nitrogen per eye wall in the intubated eyes was proportional to the size which the eye had achieved by 16 days of incubation. This indicates that the smaller size of the outer eye coat reflected a depressed growth rate, and not simply a different spatial distribution of the same amount of substance, Furthermore, within the outer eye coat the growth rates of both the cellular portion, which was measured as total deoxyribonucleic acid per outer eye wall, and the extracellular portion, which was measured as hydroxyproline present in collagen per eye wall, were depressed. However, the amount of extracellular substance produced per cell (estimated as collagen/DNA) was constant regardless of the rate of growth of the outer eye wall. These results suggest that the enlarging vitreous body regulated the growth of the outer coat of the eye by controlling the number of cells in this layer rather than by controlling the amount of extracellular matrix produced by each cell. In a second experiment, similar to the first, the increase in size and the change in shape of lenses in intubated eyes were measured as a function of age. Such lenses grew normally and maintained normal shapes as development proceeded. Thus the growth of the lens was uncoupled from the growth of the outer eye coat. While the outer coat of the eye did not control the growth of the lens to harmonize with its own growth, the lens appeared to exert an indirect control over the growth of the outer coat of the eye in the following manner. Previous work had established that the lens must be present for vitreous substance to accumulate. The enlarging vitreous body, in its turn, helped control the growth of the outer coat of the eye.

System of Ophthalmology, Diseases of the Outer Eye; part 1: Conjunctiva, part 2: Cornea and Sclera.

The English speaking ophthalmological world has become so conditioned to the uniform excellence of Sir Stewart Duke-Elder's past contributions to our literature that there is a strong tendency to automatically write words of praise upon the appearance of any new effort. This reviewer therefore felt it incumbent upon him to approach parts 1 and 2 of volume 8 ( Diseases of the Outer Eye ) with a critical eye in search of flaws. Truth compels us to admit however that these two volumes meet all previous high standards and that they, far and away, provide the best source book pertaining to afflictions of the outer eye. If it is remembered that the previous edition offered 572 pages on the same subject, the 1242 pages allotted in the System is a fair measure of the tremendous strides which have been made in this area since 1943. Wisely, the subject has been encompassed in

Diseases of Outer Eye

Diseases of Outer Eye

Some Ways of Thinking about Equality

N ATURE SPREADS HER GIFTS unequally, so that inequalities among men on virtually any trait or characteristic one might mention are obvious and probably ineradicable. In this sense, it is manifestly false to say that all men are equal. Furthermore, think how stupefyingly dull the world would be if all men really were equal, as similar to each other as one brick to another. Inequality, while it may be the root of much that is cruel and hateful in human life, is also the root of just about everything that is admirable and interesting. In the face of these plain facts,, we have set equality as our moral and political ideal. Justice demands equality before the law; all men should receive equal treatment in the public realm; each to count for one and no man to count for more than one-these formulas are at the core of what it means to be liberal and democratic. Nature, then, shouts inequality. We reply, nonetheless, equality. It is as though the liberal democrat said with Rousseau, let us set the facts aside, as they do not affect the matter. This situation has seemed to many writers a theoretical embarrassment. When the outer eye, the eye of sense, reports so many manifest inequalities, how can the inner eye, the theoretical vision, still claim to see equality? But the case here is really no different in kind from that which the political theorist typically faces. He is, in a sense, forever flying in the face of facts. All theory, all artifice, civilization itself, is an embarrassment-if not an outrage against the facts of nature, then at least a thorough re-working of them. Nature urges man to procreate. Civilization replies, control yourself; rape and incest are not allowed. Nature tells the hungry man to eat. Civilization replies, do not take these apples for they belong to another man. In sum, the large discrepancy between the observed facts of inequality presents the political theorist with a case no different in kind from that which he typically faces when he deals with a large and complex subject: to point to the discrepancy here is merely to specify a particular example of the theorist's general problem.

Differentiation and Metamorphosis of the Imaginal Optic Glomeruli in Drosophila

ABSTRACT A description has been given of the differentiation and metamorphosis of the optic glomeruli. The giant ganglion cells of the larval brain degenerate at the end of the third instar after differentiation to the imaginal brain primordia is completed. The outer eye glomerulus was found to differentiate from the brain and not from the optic bud. The ‘fenestrated zone’ of the outer eye ganglion is an artefact, and develops from the histolytic products of the larval tissues in the head. The condition in the mutant eyeless is discussed.

Hereditary Bilateral Ptosis and Blepharophimosis Associated with other Developmental Abnormalities of the Outer Eye

Hereditary Bilateral Ptosis and Blepharophimosis Associated with other Developmental Abnormalities of the Outer Eye

The Life, Letters and Labours of Francis Galton

THESE two stately volumes, which will be followed by a third, form a worthy memorial of a great man. It has been a labour of love to Prof. Karl Pearson to write them, a piety which must have cost him much, especially in the case of the second volume when the outer eye began to fail. He has earned the deep gratitude of all students of science, for besides giving us a living portrait, he has brought together a readable account of all the more important, not too technical, contributions that Galton made to science. The value of this is inestimable, for Galton scattered his papers widely, and many are not readily accessible.

Popular Natural History1

Popularb (i) HE best popuktrisers, after all, are the masters—if they care to try; and Fabre's “Story Book of Science” is a fine illustration: It is very perfect—full of interesting material, vividly written, stimulating both observation and reflection. He tells of ants, aphides, long-lived plants and animals, procession caterpillars, bees, spiders, shells, cotton, paper, silk, clouds, thunder, rain, the sea, and more besides—all as if it were a pleasure to him to talk, and just the very easiest thing in the world. The book must have been fashioned long ago, but so wisely that there is little that requires changing; it was meant for the children of more than a generation ago, and it would be a joy of a reading-book in schools to-day; it was written in French, and it reads as if it had been composed in English. The translator, Mr. A. T. De Mattos, has done his work with great skill. We confess that we should not call Hemerobius a dragon-fly, and there must be something wrong in speaking of the sharp bones in the silk-moth s cornea, which Fabre described as a rasper for filing at the silk threads of the cocoon. But these are pin-pricks; the book is past praising, and its pages are very pleasant to read—pleasant both to the inner and the outer eye. We should be having a Fabre centenary soon.