ACUTE HYPOTONY IN RETINAL DETACHMENT

Schnabel, 1 in 1876, was the first to describe a peculiar complication in the course of a retinal detachment: the eyeball suddenly became soft to a degree that it could hardly be palpated through the closed lids, the anterior chamber was twice as deep as normal, and the iris seemed to be drawn far backward. Schnabel was under the impression that the thinned wall of a posterior staphyloma (it was a case of high myopia) had burst, and that the contents of the eyeball had evacuated into the orbit. He saw his mistake in a few days, when the eyeball started to regain its normal tension and appearance. Since that time, for a period of more than fifty years, sixteen more cases have been reported by various authors. With the exception of small details in regard to the cornea, which was normal in some cases and which had folds in