The scintillating scotoma or transient functional hemiopia : read before the Newark Medical and Surgical Society, Jan. 19, 1905 / by Charles J. Kipp.

  • Kipp, Charles John.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The scintillating scotoma or transient functional hemiopia : read before the Newark Medical and Surgical Society, Jan. 19, 1905 / by Charles J. Kipp. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    on with the work in hand, especially if the left half of the field is involved, while a few find it necessary to sit down and keep their eyes closed until the attack is over. Some people begin to have such attacks early in life, and have them of varying severity at irregular intervals as long as they live. Others have only one or two at- tacks during their whole existence, while still others have them only during a certain period of their lives, at more or less frequent intervals. I know of one per- son who has had an attack daily for a period of ten years, and of another who for a limited period had two attacks a day. It is said that these attacks diminish in frequency as the patients advance in years, but I know of cases in which this was not true. GENERAL HEALTH OF THE PATIENTS. The great majority of the patients who have con- sulted me with regard to these attacks claimed to be in excellent health. Many of them admitted suffering oc- casionally from indigestion, some admitted being chil- dren of gouty parents, while others were afflicted with various morbid conditions. In many of these people there was present an oversensitive condition of the eyes; they disliked a glare; they were troubled with muscae volitantes, and had unusually vivid after-images, which often lasted much longer than normally. These patients were annoyed by the distortion of objects, produced by flaws and imperfections in the window pane of glass through which they were seeing them; they were poor sleepers and had many of the disorders of sleep. Some bad so-called explosions in their ears just before falling asleep; others were often awakened by a feeling of numbness and tingling, mostly in their hands or arms, and others had rheumatic pains in their limbs at night only or. at least, much more frequently at night than during the day. Most of these patients were so-called nervous individuals. Most of the persons, so afflicted had normal acuity of vision, normal fields of vision, and no visible disease of the eyes between the attacks. In others diseases of the lids and of the conjunctiva, cornea or sclera were present and caused the patient to consult me, and the occurrence of these phenomena under consideration was mentioned by them only incidentally.