_Treatment._—The eye should be carefully washed, the eyelids being
opened and clean, cold water allowed to run over them and over the eye;
any particles of dust must be removed—for this purpose a small clean
camel-hair brush will be found useful. A lotion should be made consisting
of six grains of boric acid, or two grains of sulphate of zinc, to an
ounce of water, and ten drops or more of this should be dropped on to the
eyeball six or eight times a day. To prevent the lids sticking together
during the night, they should be smeared with vaseline or a salve
containing 4 grains of calomel to an ounce of vaseline. Sometimes hot
fomentations give relief.
_Ophthalmia, Purulent._
This is a more serious inflammation, and is caused by some poison,
_e.g._, germs carried by flies, or by the fingers from unhealthy sores
and discharges. It may also result from injury, such as a septic wound.
_Symptoms._—The symptoms of simple ophthalmia are present, but are all
intensified, the eyelids are swollen and the eyeballs red, there is a
discharge of yellow matter or pus, and the patient feels ill. There is
great danger of the affected eye infecting the sound one, therefore warn
the patient not to touch the sound eye for fear of infecting it. There is
also great danger lest the attendant’s own eyes should become infected.
_Treatment._—The patient should be kept in bed and the eyes should be
shielded from bright light. Protect the sound eye (especially when the
affected one is being washed) by placing a pad of wool or lint over it,
kept in its place by strips of strapping so as effectually to close the
eye and prevent infection. Thoroughly wash out the space between the
eyelids and the eye, and remove any matter or foreign body which may be
found.
When the inflamed surfaces are clean, wash them very thoroughly with a
solution of corrosive sublimate, 1 in 5000, and finally smear a little
vaseline along the edges of the lids, to prevent them sticking together.
This treatment must be repeated as frequently as possible. Once a day
the inflamed surfaces may be brushed over with a solution of nitrate
of silver, 10 grains to the ounce, applied with a camel’s-hair brush,
followed immediately by the application of a few drops of common salt
solution.
Hot fomentations may give relief. When this is so, the eye should be
kept covered with a pad of moist lint, which must be changed frequently.
Benefit has followed the administration of very large doses of salicylate
of soda.
_Piles._
Piles are very common in the tropics, and are often due to want of
exercise, chronic constipation, dysentery, too free use of alcohol, and
over-eating. No one who suffers from piles should become a traveller till
skilled advice has been obtained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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