The Significance of Errors of Refraction in Chronic Blepharitis of Children.

THE purpose of this paper is to enquire into the significance of refractive errors as an aetiological factor in children suffering from chronic blepharitis or blepharo-conjunctivitis. Permission was obtained from the London County Council to use the ample material at White Oak Hospital, Swanley, Kent, a hospital devoted to the treatment of chronic eye diseases of children. The patients come from all parts of the metropolis and are typical of a large urban popuilation. All the children have been referred to Swanley from hospitals and clinics in London and elsewhere after undergoing treatment generally for a long period of time. Thus they are cases which have not responded to out-patient treatment. In many instances correct glasses had been prescribed at the hospital or clinic without materially affecting the course of the disease. In 1894 Ernest Clarke I investigated one hundred cases of blepharitis whose average age was seventeen years and included forty-four school children. Atropine was used for all cases under twenty and homatropine and cocaine for the remainder. Of the two hundred eyes examined his findings were as follows: