Classic description of conical cornea (keratoconus).

Javal invented the astigmometer, and described it in the above paper.

English translation, New York, 1869.

“Horner’s syndrome”, due to lesion of the cervical sympathetic. The same syndrome was evoked in animals by Pourfour du Petit in 1727 (see No. 1313). It is a proof that the sympathetic governs the pupillary, vasomotor, sudomotor, and pilomotor functions. It was also described by Claude Bernard, Leçons sur la physiologie et la patbologie du système nerveux, 1858, 2, 473-74, and, less impressively, by E. S. Hare, Lond. med. Gaz., 1838-39, 1, 16-18.

A fine atlas which was for many years unsurpassed. The illustrations were reproduced from Jaeger’s own paintings, each of which required from 20 to 50 sittings of from two to three hours each. English translation, London & New York, 1890. Jaeger’s original paintings were reproduced in color with new descriptions, and revisions, by Daniel M. Albert as Atlas of diseases of the ocular fundus, Philadelphia, Saunders, 1972.

First description of serpiginous ulcer of the cornea and its treatment. Called also “Saemisch’s ulcer”.

First description of hereditary optic atrophy, “Leber’s optic atrophy”.

Berlin, professor of ophthalmology at Rostock, described the traumatic edema of the retina which is sometimes referred to as “Berlin’s edema”.

Introduction of the shadow test (retinoscopy), sometimes called “Cuignet’s method”.

Moon became totally blind at the age of 22. He taught other blind people and devised a simplified form of roman letters, embossed on paper, for use by blind readers. This was in 1845, and two years later he published his first book in Moon type. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link.

Text in German and English; Sir W. R. Gowers was responsible for the English translation. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische StaatsBibliothek at this link.

Holmgren introduced the wool-skein test for the diagnosis of color-blindness.

 English translation by Charles S. Turnbull as Injuries of the eye and their medico-legal aspect. (Philadelpha. 1878). Digital facsimile of the 1875 edition from the Internet Archive at this link; of the 1878 edition from the Hathi Trust at this link.

Introduction of physostigmine in the treatment of glaucoma.

First description of vernal conjunctivitis.

Förster was among the first to study the relationship between eye disease and general and organic disease of the body.

A serious railway accident in Sweden in 1875 was believed by Holmgren to be due to color-blindness, and resulted in the above important paper dealing with the condition and its relation to railway and maritime traffic. Translation in Rep. Smithsonian Inst., 1877. Washington, 1878, 131-200.

Sellerbeck was first to use human donor corneas for transplants. He was not very successful, probably because the antiseptics employed were too strong.

Thomson was a pioneer in the study of refraction. He was much interested in color-blindness and modified Holmgren’s wool-skein test. Himself affected with hypermetropia, he made important investigations on this condition, and (above) on astigmatism as a cause of headache.

Tay was the first to describe amaurotic familial idiocy, his paper dealing mainly with the ocular manifestations. The condition later became known as “Tay-Sachs’s disease” (see also No. 4705).

Javal and Schiötz here describe an ophthalmometer invented by them.

Deutschmann was the chief protagonist of the infective theory of sympathetic ophthalmia.

Introduction of the keratoscope.

Koch–Weeks bacillus, Hemophilus conjunctivitidis, or Hemophilus aegyptius. Koch discovered the bacilli of two varieties of Egyptian conjunctivitis. See also No. 5930.

Credé introduced the practice of instillation of silver nitrate into the eyes of all newborn children as a preventive measure against ophthalmia neonatorum. Separate expanded edition with the same title, Berlin: A. Hirschwald, 1884.

Introduction of cocaine as a local anesthetic; this was the first local anesthetic employed (16 September 1884). Freud (No. 1880.1) is accredited by some with this innovation, but in this connection see the letter by Koller in J. Amer. med. Ass., 1941, 117, 1284. English translation by H. Knapp in Arch. Ophthal. (Chicago), December, 1884. 

Peripheral atrophy of the optic nerve was described by Fuchs and called “Fuchs’s optic atrophy”.

The introduction of the electromagnet into ophthalmology. A pupil of Helmholtz, Hirschberg was one of the most voluminous writers in the field of ophthalmology. Besides his dictionary (see No. 5932) he wrote a classic history of the subject (see No. 5996) which today remains the authoritative history of ophthalmology. He founded the Centralblatt für praktische Augenheilkunde in 1877.

“Mules’s operation”, evisceration of the eyeball with insertion of artificial vitreous.

An operation for congenital and paralytic ptosis was introduced by Panas.

In 1883 Koch discovered the bacilli of two different forms of infectious conjunctivitis (Egyptian ophthalmia); in 1886. Weeks discovered the same organism to be the cause of “pink-eye”. The organism has become known as the Koch – Weeks bacillus (see also No. 5923).

Cohn was a pioneer in his advocacy of the routine examination of the eyes of schoolchildren.

Modern keratoplasty is based on the technique introduced by von Hippel.

Epidemic keratoconjunctivitis first described.

Fuchs’s textbook was an outstanding contribution to the literature, and was translated into many languages. The last English edition appeared in 1933.

Parinaud described an infectious tuberculous conjunctivitis transmissible from animals to man. In 1924 Gifford suggested the name “Parinaud’s oculo-glandular syndrome” as a more suitable description. See also Rec. Ophtalmologie, 1889, 3 sér., 11, 176-80.

Includes (p. 262 et seq.) description of Edridge-Green’s lantern test for color-blindness. This was officially adopted in Great Britain in 1915 in place of the Holmgren test.

Classic account of metastatic ophthalmia. 

First description of angiomatosis of the retina – “Hippel’s disease”.

Description of the diplobacillary form of chronic conjunctivitis.

Morax and Axenfeld (No. 5941) independently isolated a diplobacillus which causes a chronic conjunctivitis – the Morax – Axenfeld haemophilus.

Like Förster (No. 5915), Schmidt-Rimpler was interested in the relationship between eye diseases and general organic diseases; like Cohn (No. 5931), he was an advocate of the routine examination of the eyes of schoolchildren.

The first edition of this great collective work, edited by Graefe and Saemisch, appeared between 1874 and 1880.

Gullstrand was professor of ophthalmology at Uppsala. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1911. The above work is the exposition of his general theory of monochromatic aberrations. This is an offprint from Nova Acta Reg. Soc. Sci. Ups., 1900-01, ser. 3, 20.

Smith, an officer in the Indian Medical Service, had remarkable success with his method of extraction of cataract within the capsule. He modified his operation in 1926 (Arch. Ophthal. N.Y., 55, 213-24). See also Smith's monograph, The Treatment of Cataract (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co, 1910).

Toti’s account of dacryocystorhinostomy, a procedure he himself introduced.

Introduction of cyclodialysis in glaucoma.

Markus was among the first to describe the condition known as “Adie’s syndrome” (No. 4611).

First successful corneal transplantation (keratoplasty).

Halberstaedter and Prowazek first described the cytoplasmic inclusion bodies of trachoma, Chlamydia trachomatis.

Introduction of iridencleisis for glaucoma.

Sclerectomy for the treatment of glaucoma.

“Coats’s disease” (retinitis circinata).

Elliot, working in 1909 at the Government Ophthalmic Hospital in Madras, began to use a trephine to make a very anterior sclerectomy under a conjunctival flap, coupled with a peripheral iridectomy. See also his Sclero-corneal trephining in the operative  treatment of glaucoma, (1913).

Demonstration of the inclusion bodies in ophthalmia neonatorum.

Elschnig suggested the anaphylactic theory of the pathogenesis of sympathetic ophthalmia.

Herbert’s small flap sclerotomy.

Hulen devised a vacuum method of cataract extraction.

Filtration of the virus of inclusion conjunctivitis.

Filtration of the trachoma agent, Chlamydia trachomatis. With L. Blaisot and A. Cuénod.

“Purtscher’s disease”, traumatic angiopathy of the retina, first described.

Stanculeanu’s technique for cataract extraction.

Knapp’s method of extraction of cataract with forceps. See also his later paper in the same journal, 1921, 50, 426-30.

Attempts to extract cataract by suction and aspiration date from ancient times. Barraquer employed a special machine of his own invention. His co-author Anduyned, seems to be identified by last name only.

Ishihara’s color tests. 15th ed., 1960.

Introduction of the photometric spectacle lens.

Troncoso’s gonioscope.

Intradermal pigment test in sympathetic ophthalmitis.

Introduction of glaucosan.

Lindau’s important histological study of hemangiomatosis retinae (“Lindau’s disease”).

Gonin’s operation of ignipuncture for treatment of detachment of the retina.

Isolation of Bact. granulosis, believed by Noguchi to be the causal organism in trachoma. See also his monograph in J. exp. Med., 1928, 48, Suppl. 2.

Verhoeffs buttonhole iridectomy.

Elschnig developed the method of corneal grafting introduced by von Hippel (No. 5933) and produced good results on the human eye.

The manufacture of modern contact lenses was made possible by the work of Heine. See also his paper in Lancet, 1931, 1, 631-32. For a brief history of this subject, see Schweiz, med. Wschr., 1946, 76, 719.

Superficial diathermy treatment of retinal detachment. See also Arch Ophthal. (N.Y.), 1932, 7, 661-80.

Foster Moore’s technique for the radiation treatment of choroidal neoplasms.

See also his paper in Brit. J. Ophthal., 1934, 18, 129-42.

Guist’s operation for detachment of the retina (multiple trephining and chemical cauterization of the choroid).

Castroviejo’s method of keratoplasty.

Intracapsular extraction of cataract by diathermy with the electro-diaphake. Preliminary report in Klin. Mbl. Augenheilk., 1932, 88, 778-83.

Safar’s method of treatment of retinal detachment.

Contact lenses introduced. See also No. 5976.

Earlier papers recording the important work of Filatov on corneal transplantation appeared in Russian journals.

Vogt’s operation of cyclodiathermy for glaucoma.

The first atlas of ophthalmoscopy published in Italy, considered by many to be the most beautiful ever published. German translation, Torino, Rosenberg und Sellier, [1941]. Some copies of that edition contain an English translation of the text by G. Bonaccolto enclosed in a pocket of the binding.

Retrolental fibroplasia first described. See also the same volume, pp. 1409-23, and Trans. Sect. Ophthal. Amer. med. Ass., 1942, 213-29, for later papers.

Barraquer’s method of corneal graft fixation by minute direct interrupted stitches.

Ridley implanted the first intra-ocular lens on 19 November 1949. At the time of this first report the lens had remained in place for 17 months.

Isolation of trachoma agent, Chlamydia trachomatis. With H. L. Chang, Y. T. Huang, and K. C. Wang.

The first book on the history of spectacles. Manni gave credit for the invention to the Florentine Armati (fl. 1300).

The earliest bibliography and history of ophthalmology.

An early history of cataract.

The first systematic history of the subject.

This monumental work remains the authoritative encyclopaedic history of ophthalmology, up to the first decade of the 20th century. Its thoroughness and critical judgment mark it as one of the greatest of all histories of scientific or medical subjects. Forms Bde. 12-15 of Graefe–Saemisch Handbuch der gesamten Augenheilkunde, 2te Aufl. Reprinted Hildesheim, G. Olms, 1977. Extensively illustrated English translation by F.C. Blodi, 11 vols. plus supplements. Bonn, J. P. Wayenborgh, 1982-.

A history of ancient ophthalmology in which the writer has attempted to reconstruct the anatomical concepts of the ancient Greeks. Translated into English by Richey L. Waugh as Ophthalmology of the ancients, Oostende: J.P. Wayenborgh, 1998-99.