Significance of eccentric fixation in squint.

THE problem of the restoration of full vision in the squinting eye in uniocular squints is one which obtrudes itself in every phase of the treatment of strabismus. There is, of course, nothing new in the recognition of the importance of the treatment of amblyopia in squint. Occlusion of the fixing eye in cases of squint has been a recognized procedure since the middle of the 18th century, and there is undoubted evidence that this is an effective line of treatment in the majority of such cases. On the other hand, in a certain number of cases, occlusion, even when properly applied, proves to be ineffective and it would appear that most of the unsuccessful cases are those in which there is an early age of onset of the squint and particularly when there is an eccentric type of fixation of the squinting eye. It is with cases of eccentric fixation that this paper is primarily concerned, and with a re-assessment of the widely recognized concept that in cases of amblyopia it may be possible to restore vision only to the functional level which existed at the time of onset of the amblyopia.