LARVAL GRANULOMATOSIS OF THE RETINA DUE TO TOXOCARA

Abstract

NEMATODES have so rarely been demonstrated in intra-ocular disease that they are seldom considered in differential diagnosis as agents of possible significance, and this is especially true in temperate climates where such cases as have been reported are regarded as ophthalmological curiosities. That this view should be revised was first suggested by the important observa- tions of Wilder (1950), who, in a histological study of pseudogliomata, found nematode larvae, or their residual hyaline capsules, in about half the cases, and in the remainder tissue-reactions characteristic of nematode endophthalmitis. Although Wilder's material was selected by reason of its uniform clinical and pathological picture, the findings nevertheless justified her conclusions that nematodes probably played an important part in causing blindness in American children and that this possibility was being overlooked.