This paper explores the social, medical, institutional and enumerative histories of blindness in British India from 1850 to 1950. It begins by tracing the contours and causes of blindness using census records, and then outlines how colonial physicians and observers ascribed both infectious aetiologies and social pathologies to blindness. Blindness was often interpreted as the inevitable consequ...

Corneal blindness is considered to be a serious public health problem worldwide. It is estimated that 1.2–2 million cases of corneal blindness occur globally in a year and 90% of them are from developing countries (Chirambo et al., 1986; Whitcher et al., 1997). A survey by the Government of India estimates that corneal lesions are responsible for significant blindness cases (National Survery on...

World health organization (WHO) and International agency for the prevention of blindness (IAPB) along with local Governmental and Non-Governmental partners lunched a global initiative for elimination of avoidable blindness in the late 1990s with an aim to eliminate avoidable blindness by the year 2020. World sight day is observed on the second Thursday of October to highlight the plight of peop...

Genetic factors are the main causes of childhood blindness in developed countries (Sorsby, I966; Fraser and Friedmann, I967; Merin, Lapithis, Horowitz, and Michaelson, I972; Goldstein, 1972). In developing countries infections as causes of blindness in childhood outnumber the genetic factors (Rodger, I959; Phillips, I96I; Wilson, I962; Olurin, 1970). Malnutrition in these countries resulting in...

OBJECTIVE To assess the burden of posterior segment eye diseases (PSEDs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). METHODS We reviewed published population-based data from SSA and other relevant populations on the leading PSED, specifically glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, as causes of blindness and visual impairment in adults. Data were extracted from population-based ...

N ight blindness—the inability to see after dusk or at night—is the most common ocular manifestation of moderate to severe vitamin A deficiency. Poor dark adaptation leading to night blindness occurs when there is decreased production of a vitamin A–dependent photosensitive pigment, rhodopsin, in the retinal receptors responsible for seeing under low levels of illumination (rods). Normally, whe...