Pannus is a hymen that occurs on the eye due to the swelling of its blood vessels, which are visible on the surface of the connective membrane and the cornea, and in the spaces between them a tissue similar to smoke is formed. The cause of this disease is the congestion of the said blood vessels with matter flowing to the eye either through the outer membrane or through the inner membrane due to the congestion of the head and weakness of the eye. Sometimes pannus causes itching, lacrimation and the formation of a hymen; suffering appears from the light of the sun and the lamp, and vision becomes weak with both, because the light causes disturbance, and the eye suffers from everything that is applied to it. Sometimes it happens that the eye affected by pannus becomes smaller, and the size of its pupil also decreases.
Pannus belongs to diseases that are inherited and transmitted from one person to another.
Signs. Signs of that type of pannus, the beginning of which lies in the outer shell, are what we have repeatedly talked about in relation to strong filling of the external blood vessels, redness of the face, strong beating in the vessels of the temples, cornea or neck. And the signs of pannus of the second type are recognized by their opposite to the signs mentioned above, as stated in the general rules for treating the eye.
Treatment. With this disease, you need to avoid everything that the eye suffering from catarrh avoids, which we have already mentioned and will not return to this again. You should use the emptying and cleansing products that we also indicated. You should avoid oils and medicinal headbands; Medicines injected into the nose are also rejected. But I don’t see any harm from them if the head is clean and there is no matter in the body or head.
This appears to be suitable for mild pannus. However, with severe pannus, cutting is inevitable. It is best to pass many threads under the blood vessels, grab them all together, pull up to lift the hymen, and then cut it off with pointed scissors so that nothing remains. Measures are then taken to avoid fusion, as explained in the paragraph on pterygoid hymen. If the eye hurts due to cutting the hymen, then you should not stop eating egg yolk, because it helps. After this, red and green ointments are used to dissolve the remainder of the hymen and cleanse the eye. The best time for cutting is spring and autumn. But it should be done only after cleansing and emptying, otherwise the pain will draw the excess into the eye.
Medicines that are useful for pannus generally help most when it has recently formed. Tested medicines include the following: take the shell of a freshly laid chicken egg and boil it in vinegar for ten days, then strain the vinegar, and the remainder is dried in the shade, ground and applied to the eye. Among the tested remedies is also a medicine made from ash, to which is added an equal amount of marcasite; then a medicine made from urine, into which sawdust of Cypriot copper was dipped for one day. Complex remedies include istiftikan ointment, red tender and red sharp ointment, green ointment and tarahumatikun, as well as burnt copper ointment and the already mentioned magnetite remedy. All of them are listed in the Pharmacopoeia. Then another ointment of alum and garnet color. If pannus occurs together with trachoma, then the proven remedy for this is sumac, and this is an ointment either from sumac alone, or with the addition of a small amount of gum and anzarut; it is applied to the eye, and it separates the pannus and eliminates trachoma.