Ophthalmia

"Ophthalmitis" redirects here. For the genus of geometer moth, see Ophthalmitis (moth).

Ophthalmia (also called Ophthalmitis) is inflammation of the eye. It is a medical sign which may be indicative of various conditions, including sympathetic ophthalmia (inflammation of both eyes following trauma to one eye), ophthalmia neonatorum (a form of bacterial conjunctivitis), and actinic conjunctivitis (inflammation resulting from prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays).

Noted historical sufferers

• Hannibal's sight was lost in his right eye in 217 B.C. by what was likely ophthalmia.

• Citing Galatians 4:13-15 and 6:11, Restoration Movement scholar J. W. McGarvey theorized that ophthalmia may have very well been the Apostle Paul's "thorn in the flesh" (2 Cor. 12:7).

• King John of Bohemia who died in battle in 1346 at age 50 after being blind for a decade, lost his sight to this general condition.

• Opthalmitis was a common disease of sailors, possibly related to scurvy or poor nutrition. In the book "Negro Builders and Heroes" by Benjamin Brawley in the chapter entitled "The Wake of the Slave-Ship" is described this condition afflicting, on slave ships, sometimes the whole crew and captive slaves. Christopher Columbus suffered ophthalmitis late in his life.

• Elizabeth Blackwell, the first female physician in the United States, lost an eye from purulent opthalmia contracted from an infant with eye infection, while working in Paris at La Maternité (1849), and after loss of the eye could no longer be a surgeon.

• The Spanish composer and guitar virtuoso Francisco Tárrega also suffered from ophthalmia and seriously impaired sight after a traumatic childhood event (1850's).