REPAIR FOLLOWING OPERATIONS ON THE EXTRA-OCULAR MUSCLES

Abstract

Since John Friedrich Dieffenbach first successfully treated strabismus by tenotomy in 1829, considerable literature has accumulated concerning operations on the extra-ocular muscles. But, so far as we are aware, little or no study has been made of repair following operation, probably because of the impossibility of obtaining sufficient human material. Such a small number of patients die within a few days or weeks after these operations that it would be most difficult to obtain adequate gross and microscopic data ; and when the patients do die years later, it must be indeed a rare happening for a pathologist to examine the extra-ocular muscles and their attachments. And so, to study this problem several simple procedures were devised. The experimental animal, an adult rabbit, was given sodium amytal or pentobarbital sodium intraperitoneally. During the first year's experiments the dose of anesthesia sufficient to enable us to work on ocular muscles