Glaucoma and It's Treatment

History: The term glaucoma goes back to hippocratic times. Its meaning is disputed; generally accepted to signify greenish -- like the colour of sea water -- Hirschberg has shown that it is much more likely to mean bluish. It would appear that in Hippocratic writings hypochyma and glaucosis were synonyms, and both vaguely referred to cataract. It is only with later Greek writers that a distinction was made between the two, glaucoma becoming the incurable condition as opposed to hypochyma which was curable, though not always so. The cause of the increased intra-ocular pressure was seen by von Graefe in a serious choroiditis increasing the watery contents of the eye. To Donders it was due to an increased secretion of the choroid. Stellwag regarded it as the result of increased pressure in the ocular circulation, whilst Priestley Smith stressed faulty excretion rather than secretion, the immediate cause being abnormalities in the angle of the anterior chamber.