An ophthalmologist in Budapest and Prague.

with or traumatised, the better the results. WVe aim at simplicity and rapidity in our methods, which have been evolved to deal with a large number of patients in a short space of time. No patient with clinically clean eyes has any smear, culture, or other pre-operative investigation, and all are submitted to operation on the day of admission. In this series we had no case of primary sepsis, and postoperative iritis was, practically speaking, absent. We attribute this freedom from sepsis to a double irrigation of the eve with 1/2000 solution of hydrarg. perchloride at operation coupled with the simplicity of technique and absence of meddlesome surgery. Our vitreous loss was less than 3 per cent. in the intracapsular method, and this compares with a figure of just under 2 per cent. for our extracapsular cases at this clinic. The advantage gained for the lower vitreous loss of the capsulotomy cases is more than outweighed by the comparatively large incidence of iritis which occurs post-operatively in the extracapsular series. We hope that this series of cases will convince a fair-minded reader that the adverse criticism which the Smith operation has received is quite undeserved. Moreover, we are convinced that the Smith operationi, as outlined above, is the best operation for extraction of uncomplicated senile cataracts in the hands of the surgeon who has to deal with a large number of cases throughout the year.