Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1906-04-05

sand people in the United States are
wearing glass eyes, and if the proper
tion of increase of injuries to the eye
continue constant, in ten years there
will be 100000 wearers of glass eyes
in this country.
A flying splinter in the air, speck
of steel from some big building I'M
der construction, chip Of stone from
the stone cutters block may lodge in
the eye of the passerby and cause
endless complications. The perfora-
ton of the outer covering of the eye
by foreign bodies was one of the chief
causes for taking the eye out, enucle.
alton as it is called, until the devel-
opment of X-ray surgery, which has
saved the sight of many eyes by To-
eating the foreign body in time for
its safe removal. One of the com
moner diseases following the lodg-
ment of a foreign body in the eye,
and generally requiring enucleation,
is sympathetic opthalmia, an affection
of the unframed eye, which is marked
at first by dread of the light, pain,
and gradually increasing dimness
of vision. Before the sight in both
eyes is irretrevably lost, the exciting
eye has to be removed. Other COM
mon diseases whose removal often
depends upon enucleation are sar-
coma, or malignant tumor, and abso-
lutte glaucoma, or hard eveball."
Eye surgery the most delicate and
intricate in the scope OF medical sci
ence, is making enormous progress
toward complete surety in its opera,
tions. 1t is doing Stunts" that our
surgeon grandfathers would regard
with amazement. But one much ad,
vertised feat it has never accom-
plished, despite numberless announce
ments in the press to that effect, and
that is laying out the eyeballs on the
cheek while they were variously OPP
Grated upon and replacing them with
success.
A patient OF the New York post
graduate medical school and hospital
recently underwent a rather difficult
operation on one eye, and to make his
story more thrilling he described with
much dramatic coloring how there
were forty to fifty docthors sitting in
rows and rows above me, like it was
at the theayter, all thin docthors
being students from iverywheres in
this country and from the ould
country, an some haythens from ia
pan, an vans from England, an
we'll they was there from all over the
world just to learn off of me what to
do whin they wint back to their own
patients-an whin the surgeon who
was dom all the business, the Big
Bug, | name, in the spital-why,
people would pay him a thousand dol
lars to have him opyrate on their
eyes, and | didn't have 10 pay i'm
cint,-why, whin he TUX out my eyes
an they was hanging on my cheeks
like YOU read about, all thin fellers
thought it was so great that they
came down to look at thin close, an
some of thin TUX a pictyure of me as
| lay there with my eyes out, an If
We don't believe it, We can ask to see
wan of thin pictyures" This thrill.
ing experience found its way into
print, but it receives the mark Of alb
solute discredit from the Big Bug"
himself, who forcibly remarked that
"All these reports about removing
the eyes and then replacing them are
pure and utter nonsense. The eye
cannot be lifted one-eighth of an
inch from its socket without destroy:
ing the sight forever"
So, when the eye comes out, it Is
out for all time, and only a glass eye
can be substituted, and in this way
the work of the hospital is supple
mented with the achievement of the
optical prothetician. He is the last
resort of the eyeless one, and al.
though surgery slaves him off as long
as possible-an artificial pupil for In
stance, being made for a patient the
other day in the post graduate hos
pital, where before the eye would
have had to be removed-his minis
trations are subject for gratitude at
last, for the glass eye of today, NOV
able in exact accord with the other
eye, II certain muscles in the socket
are left intact, and so true to life that
the keenest inspection often fails to
detect it, is a boon to the afflicted
hiding the repugnance of deformity
and thus removing an obstacle to his
success in fife.
Only three houses in the United
States make glass eyes, and they are
located in New York city. A large
number of false orbs, however, of an
inferior quality comes from Thurin
gia, in the heart OF the romantic
Black Forest of Germany. Here is
the home of the industry, and from
here come most Of the glass eyes that
the regular optician keeps in stock.
The American maker, on the other
hand is exporting his finer goods to
every quarter of the earth, one house