Observations on Herpetic Keratitis and Keratoconjunctivitis

Abstract

Herpetic keratitis has always been a major problem. In 1936 Gundersen¹ wrote that in New England dendritic keratitis was the most frequent corneal infection recognizable on an etiologic or morphologic basis. In 42 months he found it in 221 patients at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary. During the same period there were 97 cases of serpent ulcer, 52 cases of phlyctenular keratitis, and 184 cases of interstitial keratitis. This experience was paralleled in most parts of the United States in the prewar years. During the war the disease was extremely troublesome, constituting, in our experience, the major military corneal problem. Since the war it has become an even more serious source of disability; not only are there relatively more cases but they seem also to have increased in severity and in the frequency with which both eyes become involved. The following analysis of 200 cases of herpetic keratitis