The currently much-publicized use of fish lens protein injections as a treatment for cataract1 has aroused great interest in the lay public and the medical profession both here and abroad. Lens protein from various sources, administered orally or by injection, has been used by numerous investigators in the therapy of cataract, but the arrest or cure of cataracts so treated has never been proved.2
The antigenic properties of lens protein are well known, and the occurrence of the clinical entity endophthalmitis phacoanaphylactica, described by Verhoeff and Lemoine in 1922,3 although debated for many years, has now achieved wide acceptance.4 Kirby2b has cited the danger of sensitization to lens protein inherent in such methods of treatment, and recently Posner5 reported the case of a patient in whom uveitis developed after receiving a four months' course of fish lens protein injections for cataract. This subsided after