NEWSLETTER 
OF 'IllE 

OPTOMETRIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY 

NOV 18 1975 

(7000 Chippewa Street, Saint Louis, Missouri, U. S. A. 63119) 

Volume 6 October 1975 ~umber 4 

Ophthalmic landmarks for 1976: 

Shortly to be celebrated: bicentenaries, tercentenaries, sesqui­
centenials and other anniversaries. 

~ 

Andre ~ Anagnostakis (1826-97) is particularly known for popular-
izing, in France, circa 1854, the clinical use of the newly invented 
ophthalmoscope. 

Richard Banister (1570-1626) in 1622 was probably the first person 
to clearly recognise absolute glaucoma. Banister was an itinerant 
oculist. He was the author of a breviary appended to Jacques Guillemau's 
Maladies de L'Oeil. 

Gottfried R. Treviranus (1776-1837) is primarily remembered for his 
rediscovery (earlier in 1722 by the Dutchman Leeuwenhoek) in 1834 of the 
existence of rods and cones. 

Petrus Uispanus (1226-1277), oculist, was born in Lisbon and studied 
at Montpellier and Paris. He is remembered for his Liber de Oculis, the 
abbreviation for his Brevarium Magistri Petri Hyspani de Egritudinibus 
Oculorum et Curis. 

I shall be writing in more detail about each of these distin~uished 
people during the coming months. 

Historical papers of particular interest include the followin~: 

F. Rintelen, "History of Keratoplasty" (in German) in Klin. Mbl. 
Augenheilk, 1974, 165 (2) 214-222. De Quengsy, in 1789, suggeste_d_ 
replacement of the opaque cornea with glass, and Zirm in 1905 performed 
the first successful human keratoplasty. 

H.J. Lauer (also in German) gives an account of Leber's classical 
experiments relative to the formation and outflow of the aqueous. For 
which, see "Theodore Leber's Fundamental Teaching on the Circulation of 
the Aqueous Celebrates its Century," in Klin. Mbl. Augenheilk, 1974, 
164 (4), 570-571. 

Who were Olsa Mashkovtseba, Eugenia Dikanskaya and Julia 
Kuyatkorskaya? You're right on all three counts. They're Russian: 19th 
century ophthalmologists. You don't have to take my word for it, but 
can read an account, given by S.G. Ma~ilnitsky, in the Oftal. Zh., 1974, 
29, 73-76. The title of the article "The First Homan Ophthalmologists 
in the South of Russia iri the 19th Century" (in Hussian). 



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S.L. Knutson and M.L. Sears have written an intrip,uing account 
crediting Boerhaave with the first description of aqueous veins. 
"Herman Boerhaave and the History of Vessels Carrying Aqueous Humour 
from the Eye", Amer • .:[:_ Ophthal., Nov. 1973, 76, 648-654. 

I might add that Boerhaave was the most famous physician in his 
day, famous enough that his address could be written merely as 
"Boerhaave, Europe" and there was no difficulty in his mail reaching 
him. How curious that letters, with complete and correct address, 
sent to me from fifty miles away fail to reach me! 

An anonymously written article appears .in the Irish Faculty of 
Ophtha1moloaista Yearbook l.ill, 7, p. 29, relating to Sir Hilliam 
Wilde - a great Irish ophthalmologist and father of one of the 
greatest playwrights, Oscar Wilde. 

In the American Journal of Ophthalmology, ~ October 1973, 494-
499, D.M. Albert and W.H. Miller have given an account entitled 
"Jan Purkinje and the Ophthalmoscope", describing Purkinje's use of 
a concave lens and candle light in order to examine the fundus. 

Currently on exhibit at the Indiana University Optometry School 
Museum is a recently acquired gift from Dr. Jack Beiman, of 
Indianapolis, a set of 3 very early soft contact lenses, made in 
Czechoslovakia, and appropriately called Wichterle lenses, after the 
inventor of the original geltakt soft contact lens. The term 
originates from 1963, when Wichterle, a Czechoslovakian Academician, 
firat developed them. Readers may not perhaps know, that was early 
in 1827. John F.W. Herschel, when considering corneal astip,matism 
and corneal deformation generally, made the statement: 

Should any very bad cases of irregular cornea be found, it 
is worthy of consideration whether at least a temporary 
distinct vision could not be procured, by applying in contact 
with the surface of the eye some transparent animal jelly 
contained in a spherical capsule of glass; or whether an 
actual mould of the cornea might not be taken, and impressed 
on some transparent medium. The operation would, of course, 
be delicate, but certainly less so than that of cutting 
open a living eye, and taking out its contents. 

Herschel's comments lay dormant for almost 150 years, before 
their realization in 1963. The development of hard lenses, of 
course, made steady progress and were successfully fitted and 
worn as early as 1887. 

Antiquaria Optometries: 

Augmenting the Indiana University Fall Optometry Meeting has 
been a book exhibit entitled "Antiquaria Optometries". The books 
are from the private collections of Dr. Daniel Gerstman, of Indiana 
University, and myself. There is an interesting selection, ranging from 



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geometric optics, ocular surgery, and anatomy to spectacles. Included 
among the collection were works by Hulke (1851) (1st award winnin~ 
Jacksonian prize on the newly invented ophthalmoscope); St. Yves (1722) 
(first description of the crystalline lens removed en masse); a work by 
Quengzy (1789). This is a profusely illustrated surgery book and includes 
the first illustrated account of a corneal transplant; B~ewster (1858) 
on the history and use of the stereoscope. 

Call for ideas: --..;;;..;;;=;;;.. 

I would be pleased to hear from membess of the O.H.S. of ideas for 
the Society's celebration of the bicentennial. A meeting would seem 
appropriate. The question is where? So far, suggestions have been made 
for a meeting to be held in one of the two youngest states, Alaska or 
Hawaii. More convenient would be the annual AOA convention - which is 
to be held in Las Vegas in 1976. What I would personally like to see 
is a meeting in which one day could be devoted to papers of pertinent 
interest, with the papers being gathered, edited and produced as a 
commemorative issue. Instead of the usual Newsletter format, somethinr, 
glossy and professionally produced. 

What a headachel --
Readers may be interested in a paper that has just been published 

on Sir George Airy, F.R.S., and the symptomatology of migraine. I've 
been interested in both Airy and migraine for several years. I promised 
the late Sir Harold Hartley that I would be happy to p,ive him an accotint. 
Sir Harold was editor of Notes and Records of the Royal Society of 
London, a journal primarily related to Fellows of the Royal Society. 
The years rolled by (12 in fact) before my paper materialized. Airy, 
who was an independent discoverer of ocular astigmatism, is known by 
historians for having used a cylindrical lens to correct his astigmatism. 
This *as in 1825. Interestingly, the independent discovery was made in 
America by Chauncey Goodrich, at approximately the same time. Airy's 
lenses were con•tructed by Fuller, a lens maker from Ipswich, in England. 
We are not sure who made Goodrich's lenses, although incorrectly 
attributed to McAllister of Philadelphia. McAllister certainly supplied 
lenses, wlich were made in France. To return to Airy's account of 
migraine, I have essentially given him credit for the printed illus­
tration ·of the Scintillating Zig-Zag Scotoma. Airy's description of 
migraine would be recognizable to the modem clinical practitioner, as 
a classic case. For further details readers are referred to Notes and 
Records of !h! Royal Society, Vol. 30,- No. 1, 1 July, 1975. 

J.R. Levene, editor 


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