ACUTE SPONTANEOUS AND POSTOPERATIVE HYPOTONY IN RETINAL DETACHMENT

Acute hypotony in retinal detachment was established as an independent clinical entity by Leber, in 1916, and nothing essential has since been added to his well known description of that complication in Graefe-Saemisch’s Handbuch der gesamten Augenheilkunde, a description based partly on earlier reports in the literature, partly on his own observations. He characterised the disease as curious and difficult to explain, and in fact we have not come much farther in our understanding of it to-day. My reason for bringing forward the three following, typical cases of this rather uncommon disease is that the three patients in question all presented certain symptoms which make it possible to make yet another contribution to the still standing discussion about its pathogenesis. The question has in recent years become of more than purely theoretical interest, because the same condition is now rather often seen as complication to diathermic operations for retinal detachment.