ART I.—Ablation of Complete Staphyloma of the Cornea. By L. DE WECKER. Annals d'Oculistique for January and February, 1873. Translated by H. NORTON, M. D., of Detroit, Mich. The sclerotic suture recommended by Mr. Critchett for ablation of complete staphyloma of the cornea presents in many respects regretable inconveniences. For instance, it has several times occurred to me to be obliged in patients with whom the cicatrization had progressed satisfactorily to have recourse to a secondary operation, consisting in the ablation of points formed at the angle of the linear cicatrix. In reality, the plate of enamel rubbing against these asperities had caused an irritation such that the substitute (artificial eye) had become intolerable to the patients. It is probably due to this secondary operation that I have never passed through that disagreeable experience (which have some English confreres), that the usage of an artificial eye worn upon a stump so irregularly formed is capable of provoking a sympathetic inflammation of the sound eye. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that, in quite young subjects, children of one or two years, in whom the sclerotic is very soft and very elastic, the cicatrization of the suture of Mr. Critchett leaves nothing to be desired in regard to the smoothness of the stump; but it is no longer so in adults, especially when the ectasis is not really limited by the border of the cornea. Some years since Dr. Knapp published observations

upon a case where the occlusion of the wound resulting from the ablation of a staphyloma had been effected by him by means of a conjunctival suture. Our esteemed confrere endeavors in passing the needle through the conjunctiva to seize as much episclerotic tissue as he can, so that the conjunctiva slide as little as possible on the sclerotic, and draw this last toward the middle of the palpebral opening as much as it may yield to this traction, thus closing the wound in a satisfactory manner. Evidently Dr. Knapp endeavors to close the wound made by the ablation of the staphyloma in imitation of the method of Mr. Critchett, and to put the lips of the wound in direct contact; but in spite of his two sutures very ingeniously placed this should seem to succeed with him only very imperfectly, if we take into account the following reflection: "The reunion of the wound," says Dr. Knapp, "was entirely similar to that which results from ablation by the method of Mr. Critchett, only the lips were not completely coaptated longitudinally, but a little folded and gathered, analagous to the folds of a tobacco-pouch." By the operative method which I have to present, I pursue quite another object than do my esteemed confreres, Drs. Critchett and Knapp. I endeavor to arrive at a sub-conjunctival cicatrization of the wound, protected from the contact of air, by closing the lips of the wound in a nonforcible manner, and by avoiding as much as possible all pressure on the globe of the eye. My object is not at all to coaptate the lips of the wound by sutures traversing the sclerotic (Critchett) or the episclerotic tissue (Knapp), which is never possible without exercising a certain pressure, whence results the expulsion of a quantity, more or less considerable, of the vitreous body. I endeavor simply to obtain a reunion as perfect as possible of the conjunctiva over the lips of the wound and of the hyaloid fossa. It appears to me particularly important, in little children, to reduce the globe only to a point to permit a convenient adaptation of an artificial eye. The occasion is presented, unhappily only too frequent, to observe that a considerable diminution of the ocular globe in very young subjects exercises a most injurious influence upon the development of the orbital cavity and upon the growth of all the bones of the corresponding part of the face. All that side of the face remains