THE UVEA - QUESTIONS OF PATHOGENESIS AND TREATMENT

Once again, the astonishing advances in ophthalmology during the last 25 years have made it necessary to expand a chapter in the Text-Book o f Ophthalmology into a volume in this System, Many of our concepts of the aetiology of uveal disease have been changed during this period, a nd the treatment of many of them - although unfortunately not all - ha s been revolutionized. It is true that our ignorance of many things we would wish to know is still profound; but undoubtedly the present epo ch in the development of medicine is exciting. Indeed, one of the most provocative and frustrating of the illnesses that affect the eye is u veitis, for the aetiology of most cases remains an enigma and, in the absence of a dramatic response to antibiotic drugs, we are often as im potent in our means of therapeusis as were our predecessors, apart fro m the somewhat cowardly but frequently very practical resource of blan keting the worst of the effects of inflammation by steroid drugs.