Excerpt from Progressive Medicine, Vol. 1: A Quarterly Digest of Advances, Discoveries and Improvements in the Medical and Surgical Sciences; Surgery of the Head and Neck; Surgery of the Thorax, Excluding Diseases of the Breast; March, 1916 The development of a keratitis as a complication constitutes to my mind a very serious objection to the alcoholic injections. At least it should be made one of the standards by which the major operation and injection should be compared. Several years ago, I noticed in 2 cases in which I had injected the ganglion with alcohol during the course of an operation, to shorten the period of ether anesthesia, that the cornea was dry, lusterless and hazy for two or three days after the operation. After this experience, I abandoned this innovation immediately. N ow I see that out of 25 cases, Hartel had a keratitis in 7, that is in more than a quarter of the total, and if this is borne out by the experience of others, I believe we should call a halt on the ganglion injections until means have been devised of lessening the incidence of keratitis. Concerning the end-results of ganglionic injections, the duration and character of the subsequent anesthesia, I think, for the time being at least, we must admit that they are extremely variable. Immediately after an injection of the ganglion there is almost always complete anesthesia in the entire trigeminal distribution; while this often indicates a complete destruction of the ganglionic cells, it also may mean merely a transitory paralysis. If the latter is the case, there will be a gradual shrinking of the anesthetic area. But if, on the other hand, the anesthesia persists without change for several days, then, according to Hartel's experience, it is permanent. The following table given by Hartel is interesting from the standpoint of the objective results in his 24 cases. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.