e_,f Yl- I~EWSLETTER OF THE OPT0~1ETRIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY (243 North Lindbergh Boulevard, st. Lou;':~:nn~f.tmi1)~~~~Vl, u.s.A.) ' . ~ . ' ., ' .. '~ Vol. 13 April 1982 Number 2 APR 1 ~ 1982 New 1982 members: During the first several years of ~~~~~~#!,UfiW~F'WJVY seventies, we included annually in this newsletter a list of the names and addresses of our members, partly to encourage intercommunication among us, and partly to illustrate the worldwide diversity of those interested in optometry's heritage. The membership grows slowly indeed, but steadily, as we add several names each year and lose fewer, the latter mostly by the morbid process of human attrition. · To illustrate the current growing process, here are the 1982 ad­ ditions, i.e., up to and including most of March, thirteen altogether, three from two widely separated Canadian provinces and ten from eight widely dispersed states of the U.S.A.: Harvey Aftel, O.D. 741 Shirley Avenue Norfolk, VA 23517 Arol R. Augsburger, O.D. 611 Morning Street Worthington, OH 43085 Ms. Nellie J.R. Bastedo H1S Library University of Waterloo Ontario, Canada N2L 3Gl Ms. Beth Bazin 7622 N. Sunset Drive St. Louis, MO 63142 Clair W. Bobier, O.D. School of Optometry Faculty of Science Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2L 3Gl Stanley L. Jason, O.D. 515 Butterworth Street Norfolk, VA 23505 Robert Madden, O.D. 259 Meridian Avenue, #6 San Jose, CA 95126 M.A. Marvelli, O.D. 1172 Monroe Street Galesburg, IL 61401 Gerald ~1ulrooney, O.D. 6454 Quinpool Road Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada B3L 1A9 Serials Department-E John Vaughan Library Northeastern Oklahoma University Tahlequah, OK 74464 Richard Stein, O.D. 171 New Providence Road Mountainside, NJ 07092 Larry B. Wallace, O.D. 202 East Court Street Ithaca, NY 14850 Dr. Steven G. Zantos 580 Surrey Hill Way Rochester, NY 14623 -26- Thanks! Quite unsolicited, not even hinted at but delightfully welcome, were four recent contributions to the O.H.S. over and above membership dues, from the following: Professor E.J. Fisher, ten dollars; Thomas ~1. Funk, a student, five dollars; R.C. Van Hoven, 0.0., five dollars; and an anony­ mous donor contributing in memory of Professor Monroe J. Hirsch, ten dol­ lars. It is remarkable how rewarding this is for those of us who have the responsibility of keeping the OHS ftJnctioning. Two outstanding OHS members die: Fumi o Morry, i nternati ona lly renowned and the acknowledged leader of professional and educational optometric development in Japan, and Monroe J. Hirsch, prominent American educator, researcher, and editor, both were members of the O.H.S. and made significant contributions to our knowledge of optometric history. At the time of this writing, news of their recent deaths have not appeared in any of the major journals, but because of their important roles throughout their productive careers we can anticipate detailed obituaries to appear soon. Bound to be different: Some months ago OHS President and rare book collector James Leeds, 0.0., was offered three bound sets of 1905-1907 optometric case records at the price of $150.00 by Mr. A. David Paulhus of Wells Bookstore and Gallery, Route One, ~~ells, t·1aine 04090. A bit reluctantly, but curiously, Jim advised that he would have to see them before saying no, or yes, as his hobby involves only 11 published 11 books and he had never considered collecting old case records. After receiving the three bound sets on loan and communicating fur­ ther with bookdealer Paulhus, Jim was quoted the 11 irreducible price of $85.00. Fascinated by the obvious rarity of the three books but deciding that they were outside of his personally affordable interest Jim called OHS Secretary-Treasurer Maria Dablemont, near-at-hand Executive Board Member Jerome Abrams, O.D., and me for advice. The upshot of our dis­ cussion was the decision to purchase the three volumes with OHS funds and contribute them to ILAt~O, the International Library, Archives, and t1useum of Optometry, Inc. To enable me to tell you about the case records Dr. Leeds sent them to me first, to be forwarded 1 ater to IL~10. Each volume measures 31x26x3.8 em externally, with slightly smaller page size, in burgundy-and-black half leather ledger binding with the words OPHTHALMIC CASE BOOK and the beginning case number (201, 701, or 1201) in gold letters on the spine. The earliest volume includes the 500 numerically imprinted, front and back, pages 201-700, on which are recorded the case records of 500 chronologically examined optometric patients between March 8, 1905 and April 3, 1906. Preceding the nu­ merically imprinted pages are 13 pages of two columns each, with each -27- column headed by one of the letters of the alphabet. In each column are listed the patients whose names begin with the column's letter, and fol­ lowing each name is the number of the page containing that patient's record. Obviously the volume was purchased by the optometrist in bound book form, and handwritten entries were made directly in the book at the time each patient was examined. The next volume, with imprinted pages 701-1200, included case records from April 4, 1906, to February 3, 1907, and the third, pages 1201-1700, from February 6, 1907, to October 16, 1907. These indicate a practice growth rate of about 25% per annum and an average of 573 new patients per annum during the almost three year period. All of the records are in the same handwriting, that of the optometrist himself. The illustra­ tion below is a reduced photocopy, approximately half the original ·size, of a representative case, that of a 22 year old Mrs. Dixon. 19• CIUI, No.1619 ... -28- The printed record form is actually in three colors, dark blue, light blue, and orange rulings, with black printed legend and figures on white paper. The recorded history in this reproduced instance reads, 11 Eye Infirmary of Roxbury Mass. gave two months ago 00 +1.25 OS 0 + 0.50 DC go O.S. +1.25 OS 0 + 0.50 DC goo Complaines of vision bluring with present lenses at destance. 11 Corneal As. O.D. is recorded as 11 0.50 D goon and O.S. as 11 1.00 D 105°. 11 At the top of the middle area Vision, O.D. is recorded as 11 1.0: C + 0.50 OS = 1.0 11 and O.S. as 11 0.7: C + 0.50 OS~ + 0.37 DC 105° = 1.0 11 which seem to say that for the right eye the un­ corrected acuity was 1.0, its correction +0.50 sphere, and the corrected acuity was 1.0, and for the left eye the uncorrected acuity was 0.7, its correction +0.50 sphere ~+0.37 cylinder axis at 105°, giving a corrected acuity of 1.0. In the lower portion of the middle area are seen 11 6°+ 11 and 11 6°+ 11 next to each of two of four P.A.'s, which seem to represent the abduction and adduction findings at the near testing distance (the punctum appropinquum?). Near the bottom of the same area are the Sursumduction entries of O.D. 11 311 and O.S. 11 311 • In the Diagnosis space is the abbreviated entry 11 H + Ast. 11 , meaning hyperopia combined with astigmatism. Also shown at the right edge of this space is 11 Pd $4.00 11 • In the Treatment and Memorandum area in the lower third of the page are the lens prescription and the spectacle frame speci fi cations. Other case records show considerable variance of entries, notes on repeat visits, and occasionally an attached letter from the patient, a relative of the patient, or a physician who referred the patient or to whom a patient was referred. A statistical sampling of 100 successive patients in the third, 1go7, volume shows 62 females and 38 males, with an age range from 7 to 6g years and a slightly bimodal frequency distribution with maxima at 25 and 55 years, remarkably similar to the age distribution which I reported for a 1g47 Ohio optometry practice (Hofstetter: OPTm1ETRY, lg48). Who was the optometrist? His signature sho\IJS up nowhere in the records, but the several copies of correspondence identify him unques­ tionably as Herbert I. Reed of Dover, New Hampshire. The first Blue Book of Optometrists and Opticians, 1g12, lists Reed at 430 Central Avenue, as having qualified himself by 11 Private Instruction lg02-3 11 , and as a member of the Granite State Optometric Association and the A.O.A. He is similarly listed in successive Blue Books through 1g5o with only an address change to 47 Concord Avenue in the 1g4o and sub­ sequent editions. The first of the three volumes included an adhesive label on the front cover inside which reads, ''IN ORDERING A NEW BOOK REFER TO Order No. A8210 Mar. 6 1g05 11 ; a similar sticker in the second volume says 11 A8654 Feb. 7 lg06 11 ;-and the third or most recent one savs 11 Ag120 Jan. 7 1907 11 • So perhaps there are 50 or more additional volumes of these meticulously maintained records shelved somewhere! In none of these three is the printer of the forms identified. -29- "Insight"~· "hindsight": Colin B. Fryer of West Derby, Liverpool, England, has written the following letter to the editor of The Ophthalmic Optician (January 30, 1982) in response to a previous letter in the December 5, 1982, issue from someone identified as "Insight": "Sir- 'Insight' is in error when he states that the word 'meniscus' was coined by Nitsche and GUnther of Rathenow. In fact it was first used by Johannes Kepler in his 'Dioptrice' (1611) to describe the convexo-concave lenses he had recently devised, although they were not actually made until some years 1 ater." Strangely, four different dictionaries consulted by me consistently credit the origin of the word to the Greek meniskos, meaning crescent, diminutive of the Greek mene, the moon. Early Desmond lectures commemorated: To commemorate the series of lectures on optometry given by optome­ trist Daniel Desmond in Osaka, Japan, in February 1926, the Osaka Gankyo­ Senmon Kouri Kyodo Kumiai (The Osaka Ophthalmic Opticians Association) sponsored their republication in a handsome cloth-bound volume of 282 pages dated August 10, 1981, and edited by Yoshihiro Fukuda. Though Desmond lectured in English, the book (19xl3xl.8 em) is entirely in Japanese. Mr. Terryoshi Kugimiya, a third year optometry student at Indiana University, the son of prominent optometrist parents in Beppu, on the large southern island of Kyushu, Japan, provided the essential translation for this review. The Japanese printing is of course in columns instead of rows, and the pagination is from right to left. Beginning, then, at what we in the Western world would call the back of the book, are 22 unnumbered pages which include some prefatory remarks, several photographs, and some optical advertisements (presumably helping to offset publishing costs). One of the photographs is of a group of about 200 persons including Desmond, posed on the steps at the main entrance to an academic-like edifice. At least 10, and perhaps as many as 20, appear to be women. Another illustration is a photographic copy of a tear sheet from a diary or pocket calendar on which was inscribed, apparently in Desmond's own longhand, "D. DESMOND, F.S.~1.C. D.B.O.A. R.O. Diploma of the British Optical Association, Fellow of the Spectacle Makers Company, Registered Optometrist." This suggests that he may have been of British rather than American origin as reported by the late Fumio Marry (variously spelled ~1ori and r1orie) in the N.O.H.S., July 1979, Vol. 10, No. 3, p. 48. Shown on the apposing page is a photographic portrait of Desmond. -30- Following the 22 unnumbered pages are 145 numbered pages, from right to left and including a good many optical diagrams, which are the translated transcriptions of Desmond's lectures as edited by Hikobe Kaji and distributed to those in attendance by the Osaka Gankyo Shako Kumiai (The Osaka Optical Commerce and Industry As­ sociation) on June 1, 1926. These were republished a few days later, June 10, 1926, in book form, with some advertisements, to be sold to anyone interested. Advertisements appear in the next five unnumbered pages. Then follow 42 numbered pages, i.e. 1 to 42, originally edited by Tokunoske Iyo and published on March 31, 1927, as a translation of Desmond's supplementary lectures on practice development and man­ agement. These are followed by 14 more unnumbered pages of advertise­ ments and editorial comments, and then 31 numbered pages of fairly technical material in concise form which may be a translation of pre­ pared text material rather than a transcription of lectures. The last 22 pages, also unnumbered, include miscellaneous remi­ niscent commentary from old-timers who remember the occasion. Included in these pages are four informal photographs of small groups, possibly members of the arrangement committee, in each of which Desmond is in­ cluded. One shows them in a chauffeured touring car of about 1926 vintage with the top down, another in front of a palace-like structure, a third on a bridge or walk-way, all wearing heavy overcoats and felt hats, and a fourth in which they are relaxed, sitting on the floor, enjoying refreshments with very ornately attired geishas in attendance. A full page illustrates a diploma or certificate of attendance which reads as follows: 11 American Optometrical College, Registered at the American Consulate General, Shanghai, China. This certifies that Kojiro Nishimura has attended a course of lectures in Optometry given at Osaka, Japan, February, 1926. In testimony Whereof the undersigned have affixed their signatures and the seal of the College at Shanghai, China, this 30th day of March 1926. Certificate No. 12 [signed] H.E. Heacock, President, M.C. Clark, Secretary, D. Desmond, F.S.M.C., D.B.O.A., Principal ... A metallic seal at the lower left corner reads: A~1ERICAN OPTDr~ETRIC COLLEGE, Registered November 192[last numeral indistinct]. The titles of Desmond's individual optometry lectures were as fol­ lows: optics, lens fabrication, decentration, dispensing, ocular anatomy, spectacle assembly, sight testing, visual acuity, instrumen­ tation, ocular pathology, the fogging method, and motility testing. The supplementary lectures were on sales tactics, an optometrist's qualifications, and examination room management. 250 from all over Japan attended the lectures. Every aspect of optometry was covered. Included, for example, were retinoscopy, ophthal­ moscopy, and ocular motility. In addition Desmond undertook to instill -31- the spirit of professionalism, emphasizing the importance of adequate scientific knowledge, honesty, and hard work. Altogether he made an impression, the impact of which many Japanese ophthalmic opticians and optometrists are still most appreciative of today. The cited commemorative volume, incidentally, was forwarded to me by Ernest S. Takahashi, 0.0., of Oakland, California. I, in turn, will forward it to the International Library, Archives, and Museum of Optometry. ~mysterious optometric unit: It seems likely that many of our readers have seen old optometers which resemble the two illustrated in Fig. 1 bel~1. These two happen to be in the optometry museum collection at Indiana University with no record of their origins. They had been donated by persons who themselves could provide no historical information beyond the fact that they were among the remaining effects of two deceased optometrists who themselves had inherited them from predecessors. Fig. 1 I am quite certain that I have seen essentially identical optometers in historical collections elsewhere in years past, frequently enough to make the present two look very familiar. Each has the essential components of an optometer, namely, a rod having a numbered scale, a lens mounted at one end, and a target of letters and/or dots which can be slid along the full length of the scaled bar. The obvious and probably correct pre­ sumption is that the early sight tester or his examinee simply held the lens end of the bar close to the eye being tested while the target was moved slowly along the scale to its greatest distance of clear vision. The scale value would then indicate the power of the lens to be prescribed for distance. A close examination of the scale of one of the optometers revealed to me quite surprisingly that the highest values were in the middle of the range and the lowest values at both ends, i.e., with values ranging from the closest number "3" to the mid-range number of "100", and then -32- from a second mid-range number "100" to the farthest number "7". Iden­ tified with the nearer scale is the word "CONCAVE" imprinted by means of a metal stamp on the vertical side of the bar, and similarly with the farther scale the word "CONVEX". The scale is shown in Fig. 2 with the "CONVEX" portion between a pair of ordinary 6 em rules. Extending to the left of these two rules is the "CONCAVE" scale. Even in these poor re­ productions it is apparent that the scales are nonlinear. Fig. 2 In spite of the striking overall similarity of the two instruments, a close inspection reveals that they are not identical in most respects. Both are made of chromium plated brass, and it seems possible that the two were made by the same machinist, but none of the parts of one is interchangeable with its superficially similar part of the other. Not even the screws have the same thread. The stamp imprinted letters and numerals are not identical in size, and their alignment is conspicuously better on one than on the other. The eyecup of one is black-enameled and that of the other is chromium plated. There is no trademark or maker's identification. The threaded lens retainers in the eye cups are not interchangeable. The lens of one is missing and that of the other is a seven diopter spherical meniscus lens of a curvature which suggests that it may be a spectacle lens replacement. The two rods are of just slightly different length, each about 29 em. Practically identical however, differing only by random workmanship error, are the two scales, the units of \-Jhich are numbered but not labeled. To try to make sense out of them and to derive the power of the missing lens I measured the distance of each numeral from the lens plane and plotted the results graphically. These scale values are shm-Jn as dots in Fig. 3. The two "100" scale values, one at 9 em and the other at 9.6 Fig. 3 100 80 LLI ::> __J ~so ::> LLI __J 40 <( u en 20 •• 0 0 • • • o CALCULATED • IMPRINTED 0 p 4 6 B 10 12 14 16 18 20 DISTANCE FROM LENS TO TEST TARGET (em.) -33- em clearly indicate that the two curves approach infinity asymptotically between 9 and 9.6 em, though the more distant 11 100 11 mark appears slightly misplaced in terms of fitting a smooth curve. I quite empirically decided that the missing lens must have been approximately 10.5 diopters, a rounded out reciprocal of a distance between .09 and .096 meters. Obviously the seven diopter lens in the one of the two instruments is a misfit by someone who had less understanding of the scale than I do. The reciprocal shapes of the curves suggest that the scale values are simply the focal lengths of spectacle lenses which would correct the refractive error as measured on the optometer. A few calculations quickly proved that they represented neither centimeters nor inches. I even ex­ plored the possibility of Austrian, Parisian, and Prussian inches, Which differ slightly from the English inch. Finally, after a series of simul­ taneous solutions of equations from arbitrarily paired points on the graph to confirm my choice of 10.5 diopters as reasonable, I successively divided the calculated focal lengths of the indicated spectacle lenses by different constants to make them fit the curves better. The plotted circles in Fig. 3 show the results when the constant divisor is 2.0. I think I might have gotten an even better fit by varying the 10.5 diopter lens by a tenth of a diopter and/or varying the divisor by a tenth of a unit, but I am confident that these are the limits. In fact my measurements are not significant to any greater accuracy. This, then, means that the scale values for the focal lengths of the spectacle lens indicated by these optometers are in terms of a unit ap­ proximately 2 em in length. Thus, a one diopter lens would have a focal length of about 50 such units, a two diopter lens about 25 units, and a ten diopter lens about five such units. Was there once such a unit in use? Subsequent to my writing the above my attention was called to two more superficially identical optometers among the accumulated items in the collection. The lens of one of the additional two optometers was missing, and the lens of the other was a four diopter plano-convex sphere! The back side of the sliding target piece of the latter had the imprint 11 N.A. BIXLER 11 in different size letters than the other im­ printed letters and numerals, suggesting that Dr. Bixler probably added this himself, as he indulged in a number of mechanical hobbies. Many of his optometrically-related effects were contributed to our collection at Indiana University. Further, each of the additional two optometers in the collection differed in various unimportant details from each other and from the first two described above. In other words the four superficially iden­ tical appearing optometers were certainly individually manufactured by a machinist, or by different machinists copying a model. -34- A decade of local society minutes: Donated by Walter E. Marshall, O.D., of Indianapolis, Indiana, who in turn received them from Wm. D. Elson, O.D., retired, of Indianapolis, and who in his turn found them among the office effects of a predecessor, are a bundle of 34 x 21 em. tear sheets, pre-numbered pages 1-18 and 25- 96, of the handwritten Constitution and Code of Ethics of the Optometrical Society of Indianapolis, Indiana, and the recorded minutes of the monthly and a few special meetings held during the years 1919-1928. It is quite evident that meetings were not held every month. Also, no minutes were recorded in this notebook in 1923. The minutes of April 13, June 9, and August 3, 1921, were separately typed on 11 H.M. Cantwel1 11 letterhead, sug­ gesting that the book of minutes was temporarily unavailable. Three contemporary pieces of correspondence, an invoice marked 11 paid 11 , and a printed one-page flier extolling the virtues of optometry are in­ cluded in the donation, which is now being forwarded to the International Library, Archives, and Museum of Optometry (ILAMO). The minutes represent the recordings of seven successive society sec­ retaries, H.R. Easterday in 1919 and 1920; H.M. Cantwell, Secretary pro tern briefly in 1921; D.O. Terrell in 1921 and 1922; G.R. Ledig in 1924; W.L. Van Osdol in 1925 and 1926; August E. Dryer in 1927; and Roy E. Denny in 1928. Matters for discussion identified in the minutes included state op­ tometric legislation, spectacle retailing by wholesalers, a 11 Fess Bill 11 in the U.S. Congress in the fall of 1920, enforcement of the Indiana optometry law, advertising policy, membership dues, publicity and public relations, optometrists' fees, office hours, opticians' rebates to oculists, discriminatory referrals by school nurses, and state fair op­ tometry exhibits. Occasionally mentioned were the optometric lectures and musical recitals as parts of the meeting programs. It is interesting to note that the secretaries prior to Van Osdol in 1925 favored the use of the 11 Mr. 11 instead of the 11 Dr. 11 title in their identification of in­ dividual optometrists in the minutes. The Greeks had the good word: The Greeks had the word typhlos (Tu