CONGENITAL ABSENCE OF THE LACRIMAL PUNCTA AND OF THE CANALICULI

Abstract

My interest in this rare condition was stimulated by a patient who was first examined about two years ago. As reports of successful operative results are seldom found in the literature, this account may interest the Society. The condition was encountered but once in Mooren's series (cited by Burnett¹) of 108,416 examinations. Burnett also quoted von Walther as saying that "atresia of the puncta and the beginning of the canals, aside from monopsia and micropsia is not to be met with as a congenital defect." This statement is, of course, incorrect unless one agrees that the condition is the result of prenatal or postnatal inflammation. In an incomplete review of the literature, I have found twenty-two cases of absence of the canaliculi. I have not attempted to differentiate between absence and atresia in this review, as it is not important to do so. In some of the