About clinical observations of Pterygium and the results of its operations in 120 cases

Among many patients, as well as among doctors, there is a belief that pterygium is a harmless, frivolous disease. Meanwhile, daily facts convince us that this is one of the most insidious and dangerous eye diseases, since it gradually, completely unnoticed by the patient, occupies more and more new space, moves further and further, and finally, very seriously, and even forever, upsets vision. Not for nothing, after all, Fuchs in his manual says that no matter how we remove the hymen from the cornea, we will never be able to clean it completely, and the visual disorder after the hymen remains forever. In addition, patients suffering from pterygium, as I have to observe very often, complain at the same time not only of visual impairment, impaired mobility of the eyes, their redness, etc., but quite often of severe headaches, splitting the forehead, increased nervous excitability, etc. Pterygium is also a serious disease because its head has, as it were, histiolytic properties; the head destroys not only the cellular elements of the cornea on its way, but also destroys the cornea much ahead of itself. The growth of the head belongs to the phenomena of an active nature, and not a simple tension of the conjunctiva (Pokrovsky). In addition, this disease is one of the most common diseases. The percentage of those operated on for the pterygoid hymen to the total number of eye operations is, according to my data, up to 27%. In other optometrists, this percentage is also kept in high ranges from 25 to 30%.