DIAGNOSTIC METHODS

Abstract

In an excellently worded paper in theLancet, Duke-Elder¹showed that further progress in ophthalmology cannot be built on a groundwork of pathology. Fundamental knowledge and basic methods of study are now sufficiently secure so that one can look into the murkiness of pathologic states from the heights of secure data culled from the body in healthy activity. It is in the realm of physiologic chemistry that efforts will be most fruitful. Evidence of disturbed physicochemic balance is becoming more and more available through forms of clinical study. The reawakened interest in light sense studies,²in the chemical composition of the aqueous, lens and vitreous,³in fluctuations of ocular tension⁴and in a great variety of refined methods of diagnosis⁵is strongly indicative of this trend. It would be valuable if the various diagnostic methods could be reviewed here from this angle, for