From: The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne by Catherine Reef, p99.

In August, despite a throbbing toothache, Charlotte traveled with her father to the city of Manchester, where he was having surgery to restore his sight. The lenses of his. Eyes had developed cataracts. Removing a lens, if done correctly, would restore sight in that eye. Patrick Bronte was wide awake throughout the surgery and felt everything, because the doctor performed it without anaesthesia. In his copy of Modern Domestic Medicine, the reverence Bronte later noted, “The feeling, under the operation – which lasted 15 minutes, was of a burning nature, but not intolerable… My lens was extracted so the cataract can never return to that eye.”
The doctor removed just the left lens, because if an infection set in, he would only be permanently blinded in one eye. A month’s convalescence followed in a darkened room followed the surgery. During this time, a nurse applied leeches to the patient’s temples to reduce inflammation.”

The year was 1846. Having nothing better to do, Charlotte began writing: a little novel Called Jane Eyre.

Please excuse typos. The Bluetooth keyboard I use places random full stops, and autocorrect is a bit off also.

Divine Angel said:

From: The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily and Anne by Catherine Reef, p99.

In August, despite a throbbing toothache, Charlotte traveled with her father to the city of Manchester, where he was having surgery to restore his sight. The lenses of his. Eyes had developed cataracts. Removing a lens, if done correctly, would restore sight in that eye. Patrick Bronte was wide awake throughout the surgery and felt everything, because the doctor performed it without anaesthesia. In his copy of Modern Domestic Medicine, the reverence Bronte later noted, “The feeling, under the operation – which lasted 15 minutes, was of a burning nature, but not intolerable… My lens was extracted so the cataract can never return to that eye.”
The doctor removed just the left lens, because if an infection set in, he would only be permanently blinded in one eye. A month’s convalescence followed in a darkened room followed the surgery. During this time, a nurse applied leeches to the patient’s temples to reduce inflammation.”

The year was 1846. Having nothing better to do, Charlotte began writing: a little novel Called Jane Eyre.

Interesting. Makes me wonder how much earlier they were doing cataract surgery,

Egyptian 5th Dynasty, according to http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/42710/InTech-The_history_of_cataract_surgery.pdf

According to that paper, the earliest cataract “surgery” was to use a sharp instrument to push the lens to the bottom of the eye. I suspect that would have caused blindness in more than a few people.

Divine Angel said:

According to that paper, the earliest cataract “surgery” was to use a sharp instrument to push the lens to the bottom of the eye. I suspect that would have caused blindness in more than a few people.

Oh. So they had a long time to practice.

I recall that when i was a kid, i read book by an English doctor who’d practiced in the wilds of Tanganyika (as it then was) in the 1940s. He was doing cataract ops in the villages.

Divine Angel said:

According to that paper, the earliest cataract “surgery” was to use a sharp instrument to push the lens to the bottom of the eye. I suspect that would have caused blindness in more than a few people.

Indeed it did. If the lens is damaged the body treats it as foreign and you get a really inflamed eye. And the other eye can go out in sympathy.

When I first started in practice in late 1981, cataract surgery was only done on “mature” cataracts. It involved a general anaesthetic, so anyone with heart or lung problems was not a prospect. The surgery took over an hour. You were hospitalized for a few days and there were stitches in your eye for three months. Once the stitches were removed you needed very thick lenses to see with that eye – around +13.00D. For comparison, the over the counter reading glasses are +1.00 to +3.00D.

Now it is day surgery, local anaesthetic, can see same day. It’s been a wonderful revolution in my practising lifetime.

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

According to that paper, the earliest cataract “surgery” was to use a sharp instrument to push the lens to the bottom of the eye. I suspect that would have caused blindness in more than a few people.

Indeed it did. If the lens is damaged the body treats it as foreign and you get a really inflamed eye. And the other eye can go out in sympathy.

When I first started in practice in late 1981, cataract surgery was only done on “mature” cataracts. It involved a general anaesthetic, so anyone with heart or lung problems was not a prospect. The surgery took over an hour. You were hospitalized for a few days and there were stitches in your eye for three months. Once the stitches were removed you needed very thick lenses to see with that eye – around +13.00D. For comparison, the over the counter reading glasses are +1.00 to +3.00D.

Now it is day surgery, local anaesthetic, can see same day. It’s been a wonderful revolution in my practising lifetime.

Wow. That’s amazing.

:)

Michael V said:

buffy said:

Divine Angel said:

According to that paper, the earliest cataract “surgery” was to use a sharp instrument to push the lens to the bottom of the eye. I suspect that would have caused blindness in more than a few people.

Indeed it did. If the lens is damaged the body treats it as foreign and you get a really inflamed eye. And the other eye can go out in sympathy.

When I first started in practice in late 1981, cataract surgery was only done on “mature” cataracts. It involved a general anaesthetic, so anyone with heart or lung problems was not a prospect. The surgery took over an hour. You were hospitalized for a few days and there were stitches in your eye for three months. Once the stitches were removed you needed very thick lenses to see with that eye – around +13.00D. For comparison, the over the counter reading glasses are +1.00 to +3.00D.

Now it is day surgery, local anaesthetic, can see same day. It’s been a wonderful revolution in my practising lifetime.

Wow. That’s amazing.

:)

:)

As the man was saying on my facebook this morning. There are good(great) stories.