of the eye, it will then run down beside the nose and can be caught in a piece of absorbent cotton or sponge.  If there is a great amount of pus in the eye, the eye may have to be washed out in this manner, every fifteen minutes, day and night, so that the cornea will be kept clean.  If this must be done a small fountain syringe with a glass tube (eye-dropper) attached will cause a steady flow of the solution.  The boric acid can be increased to five or ten grains to the ounce of water.  If only one eye is diseased the other eye may be covered.

[Eye and ear 351]

All cloths, etc., should be burned at once and the basin which has held them, filled with carbolic acid solution of the strength of one part acid to twenty parts water.  The nurse’s hands should be thoroughly scrubbed in hot water and soap and disinfected in the same strength of carbolic acid solution, as the disease is very contagious and dangerous to adults.  An attendant should not touch her face or hair with her hands unless they have been washed quite clean.  The conjunctiva should be brushed with a solution of nitrate of silver of two per cent strength (two parts to one hundred of distilled water) and then neutralized with a salt solution, not strong enough to burn.

When the cornea is diseased one per cent solution of atropine may be necessary once or twice a day.

Caution.—­In the cities this disease is disastrous in its results to the sight of babies.  This is due to the want of necessary care.  Persons who must be with the patient should be very careful not to get any of the discharge upon their clothes or person, as it is very contagious.

Ulcer of the cornea.—­Causes.—­Poor general health is an underlying cause or the cornea itself may be poorly nourished.  Ulcers are common among the poor classes.  They often begin through a rubbing of the cornea by a foreign body.  They also come from diseases of the conjunctiva.  Weakly babies are easily affected.

Symptoms.—­The light hurts the patient; there is a feeling of something in the eye.  When the ulcer is over the pupil the sight is impaired.  The eyeball shows a ring of pink congestion about the cornea, with congestion of the conjunctiva.  The form of the ulcer may be irregular, circular, etc.

Course.—­The simple ulcers heal in a week or two.  Infected ulcers may spread, or they may sink deeply into the substance of the cornea and eat through.  The danger to the sight depends upon the kind and severity of the ulcer.  There is apt to be more or less film over the eye for some time and if the ulcer eats through it may destroy the sight.

Treatment.  Preventive.—­When the cornea has been injured and there has been some rubbing off of its tissue (abrasion) mild antiseptic solution in the form of eye drops should be used.  Boric acid, as much as will dissolve in warm, distilled water and some dropped in the eye three or four times a day.  If there is a foreign body in the cornea, clean instruments should be used to remove it.  The cocaine used to render the eye painless must be pure.