The Differentiation and Significance of Certain Ophthalmoscopic Pictures in Hypertensive Diseases

In the great attention that has been devoted in recent years to the hypertensive and renal diseases, ophthalmoscopic studies have not been neglected. Especially noteworthy in this regard are the investigations of Wagener and Keith and their co-workers1on the retinal changes in what they term malignant hypertension, of Moore2and O'Hare and Walker3on arteriosclerosis of the retina and of Volhard4on the pathogenesis of the retinal process. In the present communication, we shall report the results of studies on the correlation of the ophthalmoscopic observations with the individual renal and hypertensive diseases. The material comprises studies of the patients with arterial hypertension and the nonhypertensive forms of "Bright's disease" admitted to Mount Sinai Hospital during 1928 and 1929. All cases were discarded in which the diagnosis did not seem clear clinically or was not checked at necropsy, as well as those instances in which adequate ophthalmoscopic studies were