Cataract Advantages And Disadvantages

786 Words2 Pages

Cataract has been known to mankind for many centuries, and cataract surgery for many years has enabled people to recover their vision, this assignment will be focusing on the different cataract surgery over the years the advantages and disadvantages plus on certain occasions the masterminds behind the innovations. Firstly it’s important to define cataract; a cataract is a cloudiness or opacity in the normally transparent crystalline lens of the eye. This cloudiness can cause a decrease in vision and may lead to eventual blindness. The word cataract has been derived from Greek origin which means waterfall. The original name was of Latin medicine but was lost in translation of Arabic writing s which was suffusio which was a short hand to expressing the condition; humours that flowed down into the eye.
In the 6th century BC the first case of cataract surgery that was reported used by an Indian surgeon Sushruta Samhita (also referred as a suttiah, but anyone who practised medical oculist is also known as an suttiah), this was recorded first by Celcus in 37AD, the process was known and couching .This was a process of depressing the opacified lens. The Patient was instructed to settle in the dust with legs crossed, and a strong man behind the patient to steady him. The suttiah would place a cotton wrap on his lancet for measurement by leaving an estimated space. The lid was everted; and with the one finger the suttiah steady’s the globe in the lower quadrant, the lancet was jagged on the eye close to the cornea, until penetration has reached the cotton wrap. Afterward penetration the lancet was removed and a needle inserted in the vitreous. The needle was moved in an up and down fashion to disrupt the lens membrane and to push the ...

... middle of paper ...

... by placing pressure with his thumb, after making incision on the side of the cornea. the intracapsular method was employed widely as one of the early methods to remove the entire opaque lens in one piece was done using a large incision , that extended halfway the circumference of the cornea , it was very important that the lens was intact and ripe so that it would not break into pieces , this limited the surgery to advanced cataract only , since fine sutures did not exist at that time the patient kept their head immobilized with sand paper bags around their heads while the wound held . The use of silk sutures for cataract surgery was first described by Henry Willard Williams of Boston in 1867 and General anesthesia for surgical procedures was not available until the 1840s. In 1884, topical eye drops of cocaine were used as a local anesthetic in ocular surgery.

More about Cataract Advantages And Disadvantages

Open Document