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Early Operations Urged
For Victims of Cataracts

Persons whose vision is impaired by cataracts need nolonger
wait, until they are blind before having an operation, Dr. Carroll R.
Mullen of Willis Hospital, said yesterday.

Speaking before the 12th annual
Post Graduate Institute of the Phil-
adelphia County Medical Society in
the Bellvue-Stratford, Dr. Mullen
said that family doctors used to say
in past yers that a person had to
go totally blind before a cataract
reached a "ripened" stage and could be removed.

FAR FROM THE TRUTH

"Nothing is further from the truth
today," the eye specialist said. "We
no longer wait for the so-called
"ripened" stage and the patient with
a cataract on his eye should be sent
to the eye surgeon as soon as the
condition begins to interfere with his usefullness."

Dr. Mullen said the demand for
better eyesight in older people is
gaining because the elderly people today use their eyes for more movies,
television and to attend to their
jobs on which they remain longer
than they used to

SECRECY ASSAILED

The physician assailed sons and
daughters of elderly people who still
believe they should not tell "mother
or dad of their condition for fear
that the shock might injure them."

Dr. Mullen said "no one has ever
died because they were told they
suffered a cataract" and pointed out
that most aged persons suffering
from this disease were "willing" to
have an operation performed.

The percentage of successful op-
erations of this type has risen to
90 percent and better, as compared
with 60 percent of success years
ago, Dr. Mullen said. He attributed
this to the improvement in opera-
tive techniques, new sutures and
better hospital facilities

INFECTION REDUCED

Dr. Mullen stated that the use of
new wonder drugs had brought the
post-operative chances of infection
to a new, all-time low, with the aver-
age time for hospitalization now at
from 10 to 12 days and two weeks
for recuperation.

Dr. Louis E. Silcox, ear, nose, and throat specialist, of Lankenau Hos-
pital, another speaker, told the clos-
ing session that good clinical judg-
ement and use of new drugs had prac-
tically eliminated many conditions
of the nose and throat, and that
even tuberculosis lesions of the
throat respond to strepto