Abstract: There is disclosed herein a system for providing control of multiple functions needed to perform eye surgery. A microprocessor based system controls a vacuum generation system using venturis and linear valves and a pneumatic system for driving vitrectomy probes and pneumatic scissors in either a variable frequency, multicut mode or a proportional cut mode where the cutting pressure is proportional to the position of a foot operated position sensor. The frequency of the vitrectomy probe cutting action can also be controlled and the level of vacuum can be controlled from a foot operated position sensor which can also be used to turn on or off a fragmentation device. The footswitch can also be used to turn irrigation fluid on or off, and the flow rate can be controlled from a control on the front panel. By making a certain foot motion in any certain aspiration modes, reflux of the aspiration line can be controlled.

Abstract: There is disclosed herein a reference system for a fluorometer designed to detect very low levels of materials tagged with fluorophores. There is also disclosed an optical system for use in such a system which improves the signal to noise ratio. The reference system utilizes pulsed arc light excitation which excitation pulses are directed onto a flow cell containing the fluorescent dye. Fluorescent light emitted from the dye is guided to a photomultiplier tube which converts it to electrical pulses. A portion of each excitation light pulse is guided by a light pipe onto a PIN diode light detector which converts these light signals to electrical pulses. A LED reference light source is pulsed to generate a plurality of reference light pulses one of which occurs between each excitation pulse. A portion of each of these pulses is guided to each of the two light detectors and two more series of electrical pulses are generated.