Historical notes on the terms "glaucoma" and "cataract" (author's transl)]

The Greek term "glaucoma" has nothing to do with the disease we call glaucoma today and that we use to translate incorrectly with "grüner Star" throughout the German-speaking countries. The Greek adjective "glaucos" does not mean green but gleaming, sparkling. It signified the discolouring of the pupil in glaucoma. It was later replaced by the pathogenetic term hypochysis, Latin suffusio, denoting the supposed "trübe Feuchte" (opaque humour) that was taught to gather and congeal in front of the crystalline lens. Later on "glaukosis" was reserved for incurable cases, disease of the crystalline lens itself, which was looked at as the "organon visus" up to Felix Plater. The word "cataract"--waterfall--does not exist in Greek medicine. It appears in Salernitan medical science around the year 1000 as a synonym for hypochysis, the disease we call cataract today and which has been identified as opacity of the lens since Brisseau (1705). The nature of "incurable" glaucoma, later considered as a disease of the vitreous body, was clearly recognized as a consequence of intraocular increase of pressure only by v. Graefe.