University of Iowa Health Care

Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences

EyeRounds.org

Leprosy

Contributor: William Charles Caccamise, Sr, MD, Retired Clinical Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology, University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry

*Dr. Caccamise has very generously shared his images of patients taken while operating during the "eye season" in rural India as well as those from his private practice during the 1960's and 1970's. Many of his images are significant for their historical perspective and for techniques and conditions seen in settings in undeveloped areas.

Category: Systemic Disorders

Post-operative Leprosy patient

Post-op Leprosy patient

This post-op cataract leprosy patient probably had never slept in a regular bed before her hospital stay. She was assigned the luxury of a private room and regular meals. Placing an overt leper in a ward was not socially acceptable. In reality, there was almost no chance for an adult who was never exposed to leprosy in childhood to be infected by normal contact with a leper. The greater danger existed in contracting tuberculosis from contact with a tuberculous leprosy patient. Notice the typically distorted hands of this patient.

Patient is blind due to leprotic uveitis and keratitis

leprosy: patient is blind due to leprotic uveitis and keratitis

 

Blindness from bilateral corneal lepromata

blindness from bilateral corneal leprommata

These lepers were confined to a camp in a remote mountain area of Nepal - " The Land of the Eye ". Both tuberculoid and lepromatous cases were evident. The patient in the foreground is blind from bilateral corneal lepromata - a complication of lepromatous leprosy.

 


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Ophthalmic Atlas Images by EyeRounds.org, The University of Iowa are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

last updated: 02-08-2008