In ophthalmology, as in other branches of medical science, the advance in therapeutics has hardly kept pace, in recent years, with that in pathology and diagnosis. Comparatively few of the therapeutic innovations of the past decade have stood the test of time; and, in the main, the ophthalmological materia medica of today bears a striking resemblance to that of fifteen or twenty years ago. Our poverty of therapeutic resource has been notably exemplified in the generally accepted method of treatment of gonorrheal ophthalmia; and the results obtained with the conventional treatment as outlined in the current text-books are far from satisfactory. Gonorrheal ophthalmia, in both infants and adults, continues to cause an appalling amount of blindness; and only a part of this can, with justice, be ascribed to ignorance and neglect. The number of cases which, in spite of the most careful treatment, go on to corneal ulcer, perforation, panophthalmitis, and irreparable blindness, continues to be considerable. Further, a decided difference of opinion still exists among well-trained oculists of wide experience as to the best method of handling these cases. For over a hundred years silver nitrate has enjoyed an unquestioned pre-eminence in the treatment of the purulent ophthalmias, particularly those cases in which the gonococcus was the etiological factor; and even now to question its right to a place in the treatment of gonorrheal conjunctivitis seems to many to be as heretical as to abandon mercury in the treatment of syphilis. For many years the only difference of opinion in regard to silver nitrate seemed to be as to whether it should be employed in the first stage of the disease, or whether one should wait until the discharge became purulent. Of late years, however, a number of experienced oculists have gone on record as being of the opinion that the majority of these cases do distinctly better without the nitrate than with it. As is well known, the nitrate destroys only those gonococci lying upon the surface or in the most superficial layers of the conjunctiva; and, far from reaching those in the deeper layers, rather forms a film over the surface which protects them from the irrigating solution used later. It also appears to be certain that the use of the nitrate, for a time at least, increases the ratio of extra-to intracellular gonococci in the discharge, which furnishes another valid argument against its use. That a subsequent chronic conjunctivitis with hypertrophy is often a disagreeable sequel in cases in which an energetic course of silver nitrate has been used is a matter of common observation. The vogue of certain of the organic silver salts, such as argyrol, protargol, etc., is no doubt, not so much due to any intrinsic therapeutic merit which they possess as to the fact that the average case gets along better without the local application of strong chemical antiseptics. However