Central Serous Retinopathy *

Although this condition was well described by von Graefe (1866), it was not until after the first world war that coherent observations with multiple cases were forthcoming. With the exception of a few isolated cases described by Batten (1921), Cassidy and Gifford (1922), and Hudson (1926), these originated either in Japan or on the continent of Europe. Thus Kitahara (1936) was able to collect over 150 cases; Horniker of Trieste, who was particularly interested in this condition, reported many cases of his own and analysed those of Kitahara in a series of articles culminating in his classical treatise (Horniker, 1937). In this he drew attention to the functional angioneurotic nature of the disease-formerly it had been considered purely infective. The first series in the American literature was that of Walsh and Sloan (1936); shortly afterwards Gifford and Marquardt (1939) published a review and six cases of their own, and were able to confirm Horniker's conclusions regarding the angioneurotic diathesis shown by the victims of this disease. Thereafter came the second world war and with it a spate of articles on this subject in the world literature, particularly from the oculists of the United States Navy (Cordes, 1944; Lucic, 1945; Borley and others, 1945; Harrington, 1946). Why so many cases (over 200) should occur in the U.S. Navy-but only in the Pacific, and not in the other services or in other theatres, nor among combatants of others nations-has greatly perplexed many investigators, and will be further considered at a later stage. Reports from the U.K., however, remained rare. Loewenstein (1941) described two cases; and Greeves (1941) collected eleven. The former considered tuberculoallergy, possibly in connexion with an inborn angioneurotic constitution, to be the cause; the latter believed the condition to be a mild central type of choroiditis. Doggart (1945) discussed a number of cases, and later (Doggart, 1949) published a series of seventeen, which he had collected over 5 years. Two cases were mentioned by Philps (1945) and one by Foster (1943). No aetiological conclusions were reached by the last three authors. Davenport (1954) reported a small number of cases, and Buxton (1954) collected 21, some of which however may not have been cases of central serous retinopathy. No adequate analysis was attempted. As fewer than sixty definite cases have been reported