Lesions of the Fundus Associated With Brain Hemorrhage

There is a general unawareness among clinicians of the incidence of ocular disturbances following hemorrhage of the brain. These complications have been recognized for fifty years or more; yet they have attracted comparatively little interest. Elschnig1expressed the belief that such changes are rare and that, when they appear, the level of the intracranial pressure bears no relation to them. In several of Elschnig's cases the fundi were normal, although at autopsy bleeding into the optic sheaths was demonstrated. Thyme,2Spiller,3Taylor,4Pearce,5Gordon,6Hawthorne,7Polstroff8and Meyer9described cases of intraventricular hemorrhage, but failed to mention the condition of the eyegrounds. In Hird's10case the disks appeared normal, but the retinal veins were congested. Winkelman and Eckel's11series consisted of 30 cases of massive hemorrhage of the brain, in the majority of which the ventricular system had been