The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgeryPaulus, Aegineta
History
The seven books of Paulus Ægineta, volume 2 (of 3) : $b translated from the Greek: with a commentary embracing a complete view of the knowledge possessed by the Greeks, Romans, and Arabians on all subjects connected with medicine and surgery
Paulus, Aegineta
Medicine; Medicine, Arab; Medicine, Greek and Roman
Aëtius gives a full account of the treatment of ectropion from
Demosthenes and Antyllus. When the disease is occasioned by fungous flesh
on the inner membrane of the eyelid, he recommends us to burn it down
with escharotics, such as misy, chalcitis, &c. (See the Third Book.) He
describes the surgical operation in the following terms:—when the fleshy
excrescences are very large they are to be dissected out with a scalpel,
and the part touched with burnt copper or the like. When the eversion is
greater, he directs us to perform an operation upon the inner part of the
eyelid, making two incisions, which unite below like the Greek letter
Λ, and afterwards dissecting out this lambdoid or triangular piece, and
along with it the flesh below, which, he remarks, is not cartilaginous
like the upper eyelid, but taking care to preserve the skin untouched.
The edges of the incisions are then to be united by one suture at the
eyelids. When the ectropion is occasioned by an external cicatrix, we
are to operate upon the inner surface of the eyelid in the manner just
now described, only avoiding to make deep incisions, and uniting the
edges of the incisions as before directed. Then stretching the cicatrix
with a hook, and pushing a needle armed with a double thread, under the
thickened flesh from the smaller canthus to the larger, we are to cut
down upon the needle and divide the thickened flesh. A pledget of lint
is then to be put into the external incision, and a compress, moistened
with cold water, applied with a bandage. He directs us to avoid warm
fomentations until the ligatures drop out. When ectropion arises from
the excrescence called encanthis, he recommends us to dissect it out.
When the disease is occasioned by paralysis, or arises from too large a
portion of the eyelid having been cut out in the operation for entropion,
he pronounces it to be incurable. It is also said to be incurable when
occasioned by the sloughing of carbuncles.
Celsus says that ectropion arises either from an operation for inversion
improperly performed or from old age. In the former case he directs us to
make an incision like that for lagophthalmos, only with this difference,
that the horns of it are to be turned to the jaws (maxillas) and not
to the eye. When it arises from old age he recommends us to burn the
excrescence with a slender piece of iron, and then to anoint it with
honey.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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