Premium
ON EUGENIC PROBLEMS IN THE PREVENTION OF BLINDNESS *
Author(s) -
Skydsgaard Henning
Publication year - 1957
Publication title -
acta ophthalmologica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.534
H-Index - 87
eISSN - 1755-3768
pISSN - 1755-375X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-3768.1957.tb07695.x
Subject(s) - eugenics , blindness , citation , library science , medicine , law , political science , optometry , computer science
The prevention of blindness occupies a prominent position in social ophthalmology as a whole. The basis of any effective prophylaxis of the blind must naturally be the registration of current causes of blindness, since a knowledge of the nature and distribution of these causes will decide on what lines prophylactic measures should be carried out. I t is a well-known fact that the causes of blinAess vary in different parts of the world. This is clearly shown in a symposium on the causes of blindness in children, published in the Journal of Social Ophthalmology, 1951-1952. Infectious diseases of the eye are still the main cause 01 blindness in many territories. In a number of countries, however, it is a striking fact that infectious eye diseases causing blindness have been on the decrease during the last decades, whilst there has been a steady increase in congenital and hereditary diseases. This is very much the case in Denmark, and it i:; probably not more pronounced in any other country, a fact which can clearly be seen from the registration of the causes of blindness in Denmark during the last 50 years. A t the turn of the century lesions causing the destruction of the cornea comprised 50 O/O of the causes of blindness; nowadays they only comprise about 2 o/o . The incidence of the congenital and hereditary diseases is shown in Table 1, which gives a survey of these diseases amongst persons cared for by the National Welfare Service for the Blind during thc years 1933-53: a total of 844 persons. This category of diseases was represented as follows: