In this lecture, I propose to outline the natural history of simple glaucoma as it is typically seen, and I am going to leave the treatment more or less entirely to Paul Chandler and Peter Kronfeld. I take it, in the first place, you all know what I mean by simple glaucoma, which is sometimes known as wide-angle glaucoma. I mean that form of disease which develops slowly and insidiously over many years, which is characterized, in addition to changes in the ocular tension, by field defects, optic atrophy and cupping of the disc from a relatively early stage, and without evidence of congestion of episodic effects, and is almost completely asymptomatic until the late stages have been reached. The people affected show no particular psychological pattern. The eyes affected are usually low hypermetropes or myopes with anterior chambers of moderate depth, conforming to no particular configuration, and physically signs of general arterio-sclerosis are more common and probably more pronounced than in a nonglaucomatousperson of the same age group.
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