THE USE OF THE ELECTRO MAGNET IN REMOVING 
FOREIGN BODIES FROM THE EYE. 
By Ai.bkrt Rufus Bakkr, M. I)., Cleveland. 
While a student in Berlin, in 1882, I first saw Dr. Hirsch- 
berg make use of the electro-magnet for the removal of 
foreign bodies from the eyeball. The magnet he used at 
that time would only lift about twelve or fifteen ounces. 
Immediately upon my return home, in the Fall of 1883, 
I had constructed this magnet, which I have the pleasure 
of showing you to-day. It will readily lift five or six 
pounds, and is but slightly heavier or more cumbersome 
than Prof. Hirschberg’s magnet. 
Owing to the inconvenience of transporting a fluid 
battery, Mr. Shackleton, my student, has constructed this 
dry-cell battery, which has been in use about four months, 
and, so far as I can see, is just as strong as ever. The 
principal objection to dry-cell battery is, that it will finally 
become exhausted, and the cells will have to be replaced 
by new ones. But I have no doubt they will last three 
or four years with the use an oculist requires of them ; 
and as they only cost from fifty to seventy-five cents for 
each cell, the expense is not as great as that of rechanging 
an ordinary fluid battery. Six cells are used; they are 
hermetically sealed, and can be upset, or carried upside 
down, without any fear of damage. 
During the past ten years I have probably made use of 
the magnet in one way and another in a hundred cases, 
and yet it is doubtful if its use has been of permanent 
value to patients in more than ten per cent, but it has been 
of use as a means of diagnosis in a number of cases. 2 
REMOVING FOREIGN BODIES FROM THE EYE. 
In a few cases the results of its use have been brilliant, 
bnt these occur at such long intervals that the practitioner 
is often inclined to become discouraged in its use. One of 
the first patients in which I used it successfully was a child 
with a small chip of steel in the anterior chamber. The 
foreign body was removed so quickly and easily that it was 
with considerable pleasure that 1 undertook to remove, 
some months later, a small piece of the head of a nail from 
the vitreous humor of the eye of a young man, a carpen- 
ter, from Meadville, Pa. The piece of iron was very small, 
not much larger than a pin head, but could tje seen with 
the ophthalmoscope as a bright, beautiful spot, almost in 
the center of the vitreous I made an opening in the 
sclerotic, opposite the foreign body, and upon entering the 
point of the magnet could hear the peculiar click indica- 
ting that it had come in contact with the piece of iron. 
Upon withdrawing the magnet it failed to follow. Notwith- 
standing repeated introductions of the magnet, I failed to 
secure it, and finally enucleated the eye. When I opened 
the eyeball, and laid it upon the table, and applied the 
magnet, the iron would be drawn to the magnet, and pull 
out the vitreous perhaps an inch, like a piece of rubber ; 
in fact, I could lift the entire eyeball off the table with the 
magnet. In the light of my present experience, I think 
this eye was needlessly sacrificed, as I do not think that a 
piece of iron so thoroughly encapsulated could have done 
much harm if permitted to remain in the eye. I must con- 
fess, that this experience somewhat lessened my ardor in 
the use of the magnet, although I have had several cases 
since in which it has proved of great service. One case I 
recall, a Mr. Smith, from Conneaut, referred to me by 
the late Dr. Weed, who was struck in the eye by a scale 
which made a clean cut on the inside of the eyeball, which 
the Doctor supposed to be conjunctival only ; he put in a 
stitch, and .when I saw the case afterward, the anterior 
chamber was filled with blood. Upon bringing the magnet 
near the eyeball it would follow it, and the patient would ALBERT RUFUS BAKER, M. D. 
3 
complain of pain. I knew at once that there was a foreign 
body in the eye ; removed the stitch, and upon applying 
the magnet to the wound, withdrew a scale of steel as large 
as the nail on my little finger, and about the’same shape. 
The eye made a rapid recovery, retained its natural size 
and appearance, but no useful vision. Another somewhat 
similar case was that of a young boy who, with some com- 
panions in the country, was playing “ Warriors Bold— 
Knights of Old,” with a couple of old axes, which they 
were slashing together, when a large three-cornered piece 
penetrated the eye of one of the boys. It was easily 
removed from the vitreous chamber with the electro- 
magnet, but it became necessary some time later to remove 
the eye for fear of sympathetic inflammation of the good 
eye. 
This is the usual course these cases of foreign bodies in 
the vitreous pursue. There is so much injury done by the 
penetrating wound, that the eye is necessarily destroyed, 
even though the foreign body is removed, or, escaping this, 
a sympathetic inflammation is excited. 
Recently, a somewhat more favorable case came under 
my observation. A young man, working in one of our 
large manufacturing establishments, was struck in the 
cornea with a small piece of steel, which was rather deeply 
embedded in the substance of the cornea. The physician, 
attempting to remove it, pushed it into the anterior cham- 
ber. The case was then referred to me. The piece could 
be seen distinctly at the lower part of the anterior cham- 
ber. Upon placing the magnet at the point of entrance, 
the piece of steel would jump up to it. Upon removing4 
the magnet, it would drop to its former position. The 
wound was slightly enlarged, and it was easily removed 
with the magnet. 
The electro-magnet has, in a number of instances, proved 
of great value to me in making a diagnosis. 
In cases in which there is a piece of iron or steel in the 
eye, when the strong magnet is brought in contact with the REMOVING FOREIGN BODIES FROM THE EYE;. 
eyeball, and carefully moved in one direction or another, 
the ball will move with it, and the patient will complain of 
pain in the eye when the magnet is brought near it. Much 
care will have to be exercised or the surgeon will be misled 
by the patient’s statements. 
Prof. Stilling, I believe, has suggested that an immense 
magnet connected with a large dynamo might be used, so 
that when applied to the surface of the eyeball it would 
draw the steel through the tissues of the eye. If such a 
strong magnet should prove successful the expense would 
be too great for any one surgeon, but in a large city, where 
several oculists were engaged in practice, some hospital 
ought to be induced to put in such a magnet, and all the 
oculists, as well as other physicians, would be only too 
glad to send all their patients to an institution supplied 
with such an apparatus. 
My experience would lead me to conclude that the 
electro-magnet has a limited field of usefulness in the re- 
moval of foreign bodies from the vitreous; that it is of 
much greater use in removing substances from the anterior 
chamber, iris and lens, and that it is of considerable value 
as an aid to diagnosis.