A Clinical Study of Nutritional Xerophthalmia and Night-Blindness

Abstract

Amongst the urban population in the industrial districts of northern England there are to be seen occasional cases of night-blindness or xerophthalmia due to diet deficiency. The patients usually come to hospital with the symptom of night-blindness to seek advice from the ophthalmologists, who readily recognize the nature of the disease and give the appropriate treatment without referring them to the physicians. This may in some measure account for the absence of any recent reference to it in this country, for I can find no published records of recent cases apart from those reported from China during the past few years. I do not suggest that China and northern England are unique in this manner, for I believe that the disease is more wide-spread than is commonly believed, and that an appreciation of its early symptoms will lead to its readier recognition by general physicians.