Since the time of Jonathan Hutchinson(1858~63), it has been known that over 90% of cases of diffuse interstitial keratitis occur in syphilitic patients. Interstitial keratitis is due to acquired syphilis in 4% of cases and the other 6% of cases due to tuberculosis, sarcoid, trypanosomiasis, onchocerciasis and other rare infections. After the introduction of penicillin by Mahoney et al. in 1943 for syphilis therapy, syphilis epidemy was sharply decreased throughout the world. However, during the middle 1950's the incidence of syphilis began to increase throughout the world. In Korea. the syphilis incidence has been increased since around 1963-1965 in parallel with the world trends(Kim and Lew 1968). A 6 year old Korean girl has been found to have bilateral acute interstitial keratitis and a positive serological test for syphilis.
Child ; Female ; Humans ; Incidence ; Keratitis* ; Korea ; Onchocerciasis ; Penicillins ; Serologic Tests ; Syphilis ; Syphilis, Congenital* ; Trypanosomiasis ; Tuberculosis

Blindness is a worldwide health problem which affects at least 10 million people presently. The leading causes of preventable blindness in the world are trachoma, onchocerciasis, and xerophthalmia. The causes of blindness have been surveyed in many countries throughout the world, however they have varied with the country and nation. Even though there have been few reports on blindness in Korea, the nationwide surver has not been done yet. Before the survey is done, the blindness should be defined. But the definition of blindness varies in accordance with social, economical and educational status of that country. To standerdize the definition of blindness, the International Association for the Prevention of Blindness defines the visual acuity for distant vision of 5/200 or less of the better eye. In Korea. blindness has been defined. variably from visual acuity of counting finger/1 m to 20/200 or less, by serveral authors. In this survey. 1,369 patients who have visual acuity of 20/200 or less in one eye or in both eyes have been observed statistically from January 1972 to October 1978. 1. Number of blind patient .......... 1,369 (3.55%). 2. Type of blindness; Number of binocular blindness .......... 312 (22.79%), Number of monocular blindness .......... 1,057 (77.21%), Number of blindnel!s involving the left eye .......... 552(40.32%), Number of blindness involving the right eye .......... 505 (36.89%). 3. The sex and age of the blind patient; 803 persons (58.7%) were male and 566 persons (41.3%) were female. 219 persons (16.0%) were between 21 and 30 years of age, which was the highest rate. 113 person (8.3%) were over 71 years of age, which was the lowest rate. But the age distribution of blind patient shows decrescent as the age decrease. 4. The rate of the etiology of the blind eye; Trauma (23.02%), Eye disease (13.03%). Prenatal influences (7.20%). Systemic disease (5.59%), Tumor (0.77%), and unknown etiology (50.38%). 5. The rate of the site of the blind eye; Lens (32.90%). cornea (17.25%), retina (13.09%), optic nerve (8.86%). and uveal tract (3.69%). 6. The rate of the blind eye disease; Cataract (32.48%). corneal opacity (16.89%), optic nerve atrophy (7.20%), degeneration of the retina (7.08%), glaucoma (6.19%), phthisis bulbi (5.65%), anophthalmos (3.45%), uveitis (3.27%), and retinal detachment (3.21%). 7. The rate of the blind eye by visual acuity; Absolute blindness and visual acuity between 4/200 or above and less than 10/200 (19.2%), hand movement (19.0%). finger count/1m or less (18.6%). light perception only (16.5%), and visual acuity between 10/200 or above and less than 20/200 (4.5%). 8. Aside from absolute blindness (negative light perception), the causes of the blindness were the diseases of the lens, the cornea, and the retina. The prevalence of blindness due to the diseases of the cornea or optic nerve was the highest below the age of 20, and that due to lens diseases the highest over 41 year old.
Adult ; Age Distribution ; Anophthalmos ; Atrophy ; Blindness ; Cataract ; Cornea ; Corneal Opacity ; Educational Status ; Eye Diseases ; Female ; Fingers ; Glaucoma ; Hand ; Humans ; Korea ; Lens Diseases ; Male ; Onchocerciasis ; Optic Nerve ; Prevalence ; Retina ; Retinal Detachment ; Telescopes ; Trachoma ; Uveitis ; Visual Acuity ; Xerophthalmia