Star (ophthalmology)

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Classification according to ICD-10
H25.- Senile cataract
H25.- Other forms of cataract
H40.- glaucoma
H54.0 Blindness, binocular
ICD-10 online (WHO version 2019)

The historical ophthalmological term star describes a number of eye diseases that in earlier times almost without exception led to severe visual impairment or even blindness . The resulting “rigid” gaze of those affected was the name giver for this term , which has been derived from various sources , in the early Middle Ages . In Middle High German, for example, one speaks of starblint , in Old High German of staraplint , both terms for “starblind”, i.e. “blind or cloudy when the eyes are open (“ staring ”).

A distinction is still made today between " cataracts ", " glaucoma " and, less often, "black star" ( amaurosis ).

Star shapes

Cataract

Cataract in the human eye

The cataract describes the light-grayish discoloration of the eye lens by an advanced turbidity. In pronounced cases, this can be visible to the naked eye by a whitish glow in the pupil ( leukocoria ). By the ideas of the then popular Humoralpathologie affected, people took the antiquity that this form of blindness thereby would create that phlegmatic flows down from the brain behind the cornea and there coagulates. This is how the word "cataract", which is still used today, came about. It was first suspected in the 17th century that the clouding of the lens of the eye is the cause of the cataract. The Old High German staraplint appeared in glosses as early as the 8th century AD and since then has been a rarely used adjective for people suffering from cataracts.

Since 1534, "Star" has been used in German as a term for an eye disease . It was probably Justus Jonas who, on behalf of Martin Luther , translated the book of Tobias ( apocryphal biblical script , today called the Book of Tobit ). The original Greek text speaks of a white corneal scar of old Tobit, which the son, Tobias, on the advice of the archangel Raphael, dissolved with a fish gall. This illness was translated by him as “star”. The noun "star" was then used almost exclusively in ophthalmology for lens opacity, corresponding to the old meaning of the adjective "star-blind". The "star" was the most common cause of blindness at that time, but "star" was also used in common parlance for other forms of blindness.

Black star

In 1583 the first large textbook on ophthalmology was published in German by Georg Bartisch in Dresden . In this he divided the starlings according to their color into white, blue, green, gray, yellow and black starlings . “Black star” usually does not mean clouding of the lens, but complete blindness associated with a wider pupil, which can not be improved by the star stitch , a method of treatment for cataracts that was widespread at the time.

Green Star

In 1743 the doctor Johann Caspar Sommer in Landeshut in Silesia translated a book by the Belgian surgeon Michel Brisseau (1676–1743) from French . He mistakenly translated the word “glaucome” ( glaucoma ), which actually describes a disease of the optic nerve , as “glaucoma”. This can be explained by the fact that the term “glaucoma”, originally coined by Aristotle , comes from the Greek γλαυκός ( glaukós ) “bright”, “shining”, “shiny”; Concerning the sea: «(gray) bluish » or in relation to the Atlantic also “green-bluish”. This blue-gray discoloration of the iris was a symptom of chronic inflammation .

In 1801, at a time when France had great political and military power in Europe and the French language was spreading more and more, Joachim Heinrich Campe, as a countermovement, published a dictionary of the explanation and Germanization of the foreign expressions that had penetrated our language . He again suggested replacing the “foreign word” “glaucoma” with “glaucoma”.

Since then, "glaucoma" and "glaucoma" have been equated in all general German lexicons, while ophthalmologists continue to see lens opacity as a result of frequent inflammations or glaucoma. In the 18th century, only the black , gray and green star remained in the terminology of ophthalmology of the various forms of the star according to Georg Bartisch .

The word "glaucoma" changed its meaning several times in the 19th century and finally established itself as the name for increased intraocular pressure . It was not until the end of the 19th century that an ophthalmologist noticed the wrong translation of “glaucoma” with “glaucoma”. At the beginning of the 20th century, most ophthalmologists were still unaware of this error and continued to use glaucoma to refer to the opacification of the lens in glaucoma.

Until the 1970s, “Star” remained the most widely used term for lens opacity in German, synonymous with the word cataract. In vain did the ophthalmologists defend themselves against the popular translation of "glaucoma" with "glaucoma". Other ophthalmologists, however , took up this change in meaning . In many German-language textbooks for ophthalmology, the translation "green star" for "glaucoma" can be found today

Web links

Wiktionary: Star  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. Eye Clinic of Heidelberg University Hospital ( Memento of the original dated December 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.klinikum.uni-heidelberg.de
  2. ^ Etymological dictionary of the German language ( Star 2 ).
  3. ^ W. Asher: Repetitorium der Augenheilkunde. 2nd edition Leipzig 1906, pp. XIV and XXXV.
  4. Gundolf Keil: "blutken - bloedekijn". Notes on the etiology of the hyposphagma genesis in the 'Pommersfeld Silesian Eye Booklet' (1st third of the 15th century). With an overview of the ophthalmological texts of the German Middle Ages. In: Specialized prose research - Crossing borders. Volume 8/9, 2012/2013, pp. 7–175, here: pp. 62–65.
  5. ^ J. Hermann Baas: The historical development of the medical status and the medical sciences. Leipzig 1896; Reprint Wiesbaden 1967, p. 293 and 405.
  6. Ophthalmoduleia - That is eye service. Newer and well-founded, report of the causes and recognizes all ailments, damages and defects of the eyes . Stöckel, Dresden 1583.
  7. Why the Green Star isn't actually green at all. on: farbimpulse.de , 2010.
  8. ^ Wilhelm Gemoll , Karl Vretska : Greek-German school and hand dictionary. 9th edition. Verlag Hölder-Pichler-Tempsky, 1991, ISBN 3-209-00108-1 .
  9. Dictionary for the explanation and Germanization of the foreign words that have appeared in our language (2 parts, Braunschweig 1801; edition 1813: full text in the Google book search)
  10. For example in: T. Heyartz, S. Gross, E. Haus: Eye, Skin and ENT Diseases. 2nd Edition. Urban & Fischer / Elsevier, 2000, ISBN 3-930192-76-4 .