from Part VIII - Major Human Diseases Past and Present
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
In its broadest sense, ophthalmia is an inflammation of the eye, especially of the conjunctiva of the eye. The term derives from the Greek word ophthalmos (the eye). Hence, almost any disease that attacked the eye was called ophthalmia in many Greco- Roman and later European sources until the beginning of the twentieth century. As medical knowledge was refined, defining terms were attached, such as “purulent ophthalmia,” “neonatorum ophthalmia,” or “Egyptian ophthalmia.” The problem for historians attempting to define eye diseases in the past is that the term “ophthalmia” meant many diseases that attack the eyes or that manifest symptoms in the eye, and that blindness due to “ophthalmia” had many causes. Two important causes of ophthalmia were trachoma and conjunctivitis; this essay is limited to these.
Trachoma (also called granular conjunctivitis and Egyptian ophthalmia) has been defined as a contagious keratonconjunctivitis caused by Chlamydia trachomatis (serotypes A, B, Ba, and C). It is characterized by the formation of inflammatory granulations on the inner eyelid, severe scarring of the eye in the fourth stage, and blindness (but not in all cases). It was one of the leading causes of blindness in the past, and still blinds millions in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa (Bietti and Werner 1967; Rodger 1981; Insler 1987).
Conjunctivitis (purulent ophthalmia) may appear with trachoma and may complicate the progression of the disease so that blindness rather than healing occurs. Although conjunctivitis may denote any inflammation of the conjunctiva (“the mucous membrane lining the inner surface of the eyelids and covering the frontpart of the eyeball”), bacteria often infect the conjunctiva at the same time as does trachoma, thus causing an acute bacterial conjunctivitis.
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