vr- : ••• '· • ~ • - •• , ~ ............ w ••••••••••• t • Of! lllOiiHl(; Ui!IVt'ISil~ fJPTOMHRY UBf;rjii i AUG ~ ~~ 1S89 AUG 2 3 1989 . NEWSLETTER : ubrar~ : OF THE f'·ll"iH~H\ maut~~nv ......................... £:. ~.'l'.Q~:,ETRIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY 243 North Lindbergh Boulevard t. Louis, Missouri, 63141, USA) Volume 20 January 1989 Number 1 1989 OHS Officers: During the December 1988 OHS meeting at Columbus, Ohio, the Executive Board appointed two new members (Charles Raine and Bridget Kowalczyk) and reappointed another (Douglas Penisten) to their Board. The terms of two members of the 1988 Board (Pat Carlson and Douglas Penisten) expired on December 31, 1988 and another member (Maria Dablemont) requested resignation from the Board. Since this left three vacancies and since the Newsletter mailing was behind, the Board deemed it necessary not to wait and made the new appointments. Soon afterwards by mail the Executive Board elected the OHS officers from among themselves. Listed below are the 1989 OHS Executive Board members with their respective office titles and the year of their term expiration. President: Vice-President: Secretary: Treasurer: Trustees: Call for nominations: T. David Williams Charles Haine Bridget Kowalczyk Douglas Penisten Jerry Abrams Andrew Fischer Meredith Morgan (1991) (1992) (1990) (1992) (1989) (1989) (1990) Future readers will look back at this issue of the Newsletter and wonder why a call for nominations occurred in January! This would normally be a bit early for Executive Board terms that would not expire until December 31, 1989. In fact, it might even make the Board members whose terms were expiring feel a bit uneasy - but such is not the case. OHS members will be receiving this issue in August and therefore requests for nominations, or renominations to the Executive Board are now being requested. The Executive Board members whose terms will expire this year are Jerry Abrams and Andrew Fischer. By all means, do not hesitate to include yourself as a candidate if such responsibility interests you. Please send your nominations to: Douglas Penisten, College of Optometry, Northeastern State University, Tahlequah, OK 74464-7098. 2 1988 reminisce-in: In spite of the competition of Saturday evening receptions and cocktail parties at the bewitching hour of 6:30 p.m. in the foreshortened schedule of events at the American Academy of Optometry meeting in Columbus, Ohio, on December 10 in the Hyatt Regency Hotel, the annual OHS reminisce-in was attended by 37 history buffs. President Jerry Abrams had arranged for two 20 minute talks that together prompted 20 minutes of lively comment. One of the topics was the early history of the optometry curriculum at The Ohio State University initiated by Charles Sheard in 1914. The speaker was Professor Gregory Good of Ohio State who was introduced by Susan Kroll, the OSU optometry librarian. The other speaker was our own James Leeds who gave a fascinating account of his career-long experiences originally as an unsophisticated accumulator and now a worldly known collector of optometry-related books, old and new. His paper will appear in a forthcoming issue of this Newsletter. Aughts for sale: OHS member George Li ts inger, 0. D. , was prompted by the October 1986 NOHS article on "Aught Lenses" to check his accumulated optometricana. He found a set of measuring rims for all aught lenses. Now retired, he wonders if any collector would care to purchase them. If so, his address is 1221 N. Lundergan Avenue, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068, telephone (312) 823-3404. Stating that he is in poor health he asks if anyone with a small truck would transport his optometric effects to ILAMO as a contribution. Otherwise, says he, the trashman may get it all. ILAMO has been advised. From a Korean journal: The next two pages of this newsletter are reproductions of pages 134-135 of the July 1988 issue of Optical Monthly Ankyoungkye, a publication of the Opticians Association of Korea, Seoul. Though the 24 sketched illustrations are labeled in the untransla-ted Korean language, it is quite obvious from their accompanying dates in Arabic numerals that they are representations of eyewear in chronological order of their eras from the 13th to the early 20th centuries. From the numerous historical pictures of spectacles, vending scenes, optical machinery, equipment, tools, lens shops, early factories, etc. in the thirteen preceding pages, 120-133, the whole 15 pages may well be a single feature article. The illustrations clearly suggest that it is either adapted from, or a direct translation of, a European publication. 3 12901:1?1 I E!~?i ISOO'd?i I 0/DfO// EfC/I!f ~ ~?1 ISOOt.J?Pf!.E{ I 8fi !!! Ef/PH1 1600t.Pf!.E{ I .'i!.~?i 173JtJ!f!.E{ I EfXffF0/~?1 1752'd!f!.E{/ 0/~'l,IC/I~?f(~f= £!?1) 179S'd?i I 7m~?1 1797Jd?f 10/D}O// ¥f! ~?f 134 ll!HQW 198807 4 1800tH1 I 0/8£!/C//e!s 182511?11 Yc ~V?1 1830I::::E~ ~V?1 1840118 I ifi!.fef?1 184011lf!.£{ l.i!!.V?1 193211lf!.£{ I ~f!!0/1 ~§!Of Jlc -f!V?1 135 IUU5t?t: 198807 ~ <.: ~51.,., 5 Bax's interpretation reinforced: In a previous issue of this Newsletter {April 1988, p. 20) attention was called to Bax' s interpretation of spectacles in Bosch's paintings as symbolizing gullibility and deception in 15th century Dutch culture. A supporting comment comes from Henri Obstfeld, Lecturer in Ophthalmic Lenses and Dispensing at the City University, London, who was born and reared in The Netherlands. He adds that he recalled hearing a Dutch saying occasionally expressed by his now 80 year old mother, a saying which he believes traces back at least to his grandmother, which used the cost of a pair of spectacles to convey a derogatory meaning. The rare book market: David Goss calls attention to a periodical catalog entitled Norman Rare Books News, a publication of Jeremy Norman & Co., Inc., 442 Post Street, San Francisco, CA 94102-1579, USA. Issue No. 2 was printed for the American Academy of Ophthalmologists in November 1987 and lists 234 rare publications related to the eye and optics with prices and very brief descriptions of their condition and in some instances significant comments relating to their value as collector's items. Issue No. 5 dated Summer 1988 similarly lists 204 "Recent. Acquisitions in Medicine, Science & Miscellaneous Fields", which include Bacon's Perspectiva at $4,500 and Newton's Optics at $9,500. The ophthalmological edition of the catalog includes numerous optometrically related items such as the 1932 British Optical Association library and museum catalogue at $250 and Chevallier's 1810 and 1812 editions of "Le conservateur de la vue" at $125 and $1,000 respectively. The latter, a deluxe edition, is signed by the author. We are told that "The Chevallier dynasty of opticians were famous throughout the 18th and 19th centuries." A 1921 edition of Gleichen & Klein, a mechanical optics text "fur Optiker, Okulisten und zum Gebrauch in optischen und mechanischen Werkstatten" is offered at $60. "The clinical use of prisms" by Maddox in 1893 lists at $40. Surprisingly, one of only 200 original copies of Prentice's 1926 "Legalized optometry and the memoirs of its founder" is listed at only $75. Tscherning's "Physiologic Optics", 1920, {which some of us older optometrists used as a school textbook) is available at $30. A carbon copy typescript of Gordon Walls' unpublished doctoral thesis, 1931, is priced at $450. These are merely a few of the interesting items. The catalogs themselves serve as a valuable guideline for appraising old books being considered as donations as well as for sale or purchase in so far as dealers' prices may be presumed to reflect the marketplace. 6 Excellenz von Helmholtz: Quite legitimately the patriarch of visual science, Hermann von Helmholtz (1821 - 1894) had conferred upon him by the old German Emperor Wilhelm I (1797 - 1888) the title of Excellehz. Next to Bismarck (1815 1898) and to the Emperor himself, Excellenz von Helmholtz had become the most illustrious man in the German Empire. So reported Columbia University Professor of Electromechanics M. I. Pupin (1858 - 1935) in "Reminiscences of Hermann von Helmholtz" in the June 1922 issue of the Journal of the Optical Society of America, Vol. VI, pp. 336-342. The article is the synopsis of an address presented October 24, 1921, at the Helmholtz Memorial meeting in Rochester, New York. Pupin had gone to Germany shortly after his graduation from Columbia in 1883 to study with Helmholtz for three years at the Physical Institute of the University of Berlin. Reminiscences of the man Helmholtz, his manner, his benevolence, his lecture style, his social life, his colleagues and admirers, and his involvements with industrial, political, and scientific personages of the era make the article a touching biographical account. Included are such anecdotal details as Helmholtz's visitor Crown Prince Frederick obediently throwing his cigar away when seeing the no smoking sign at the Institute building entrance. Pupin also put forth his own pet observation that Helmholtz's countenance always reflected the mental image of the person speaking to him, ranging from signs of despair to sunrise sky radiance. Ophthalmic industry history: Optyl Eyewear Fashion International Corporation recently donated $7,500 to the Smithsonian Institution for the development of a book on the evolution of the ophthalmic industry worldwide. It is intended that it be a major reference work for historians and collectors. OHS member Eric P. Muth is the coordinator of the project. When finished, the book will be sold through the Smithsonian Institution. Colonial American optometry: • Thanks to OHS member Charles Letocha, who discovers and shares many historical resources with us, we received copies of two well­ researched papers dealing with colonial optics, including spectacles, in the 19th and late 18th centuries. OHS member Deborah Jean Warner, the author of one, gathered her evidence "from directories, census returns, advertisements, patents, credit ratings, death notices, and wills", and cited notes from 55 different sources. She is the Curator, History of Physical Sciences, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Her article is entitled "Optics in Philadelphia 7 During the Nineteenth Century" and appeared in 1985 in the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 129, No. 3, pp. 291-299. In her search she uncovered the names of numerous opticians in early Philadelphia, who in a generic sense were the optometrists of the era. She was able to derive well-documented inferences as to their skills, training, financial successes, inventiveness, scientific involvement, national origins, civic roles, academic efforts, optometric services, and professional philosophy. In fact this article, though dealing only with the Philadelphia scene, may well be the most comprehensive view of colonial optometry in print. The other article, "Antique Spectacles", appeared in the December 1948 issue of Antiques, pp. 429-431, by Malcolm Watkins, Associate Curator in Cultural History at the National Museum, Washington, DC. He reported that spectacle collecting so far had been little explored but that "the quest becomes more challenging". He suggested that "The first indications of an American optician is an advertisement in the New York Gazette or the Weekly Post-Boy for May 21, 1735 in which "Notice is hereby given that the Widow of Balthaser Sommer, late from Amsterdam, now lives next door to Mr. Laffert's on Pot-baker's Hill, in Smith-street, New York, Grinds all sorts of Optic Glasses to the greatest perfection, such as Microscope Glasses, Spying Glasses of all Lengths, Spectacles, Reading Glass, for near-sighted People or others;" Comparable advertisements elsewhere in New York and in Boston suggest similar patterns in the major colonial communities. Occhiali Italiani: This is the title of a solid black 144 page 21 x 25 x 1.5 em. hard cover book printed in February 1986 by Artigrafiche Silva, Parma, Italy, under sponsorship of ANFAO, the (Italian) National Association of Eyewear Products Manufacturers. Except for the title, meaning "Italian spectacles", all of the text is in English with various chapters authored by seven different persons and translated by Organizzazione Target Lingue, which suggests that perhaps the book appears in other languages as well. The bulk of the contents consists of high color illustrations of antique, early, and modern eyewear products artistically and aesthetically displayed. In the first chapter entitled "Why this book" it is declared that "Clothes, shoes, accessories, personal jewelry, house furniture, (and) beautiful things are a social tool for interpersonal relationships, a language to express our feelings. It is in this perspective that eyeglasses must find their place. This book has no other object." 8 Perhaps so. Whatever the motive, the various authors make some interesting assertions about the relevant history, assertions apparently derived from a summary bibliography of nine books ranging chronologically from a 1678 publication by F. Redi to a 1985 institute of science report, most in Italian. Here are a few of the extracted declarations. "In the field of eyeglasses ... the Italians have a six-century headstart, especially in Venice." "March 15, 1878 marks the date of birth of the eyewear industry in Italy. There is preserved by Padua a notarized record of the initial contract for the first factory of this section of industry drafted in favor of Angelo Frescura." Concerning the origin of eyeglasses, " ... there seems to be a consensus over the attribution of their invention to an anonymous Italian, probably a Venetian, around the middle of the XIIIth century." "The oldest documents which explicitly refer to the art of making lenses for eyeglasses are the Venetian Capitularies of 1300. A paragraph, dated 15 June 1301, concerning the Guild that grouped glaziers and rock crystal workers prescribes that those intending to manufacture vitreos ab oculis ad legendum be members of Glazier Guild, the Cristalleri, and commit themselves not to divulge outside Venice the trade secrets of this precious craftsmanship. Harsh punishments were stipulated for offenders." The earliest figure to wear glasses was a Dominican - the bishop Ugone da Provenza- portrayed by Tomaso da Modena in 1252". Concerning the phrase Made in Italy "Do not be led into believing that it is a recent or emergent phenomenon. It goes back at least 2000 years .•. " Alleging the deliberate denigration of eyeglasses "by those XIXth century penpushing novelists who used to be paid so much per line," one of the book's authors, Luca Goldoni, deplores "Their characters' use and abuse of them, putting them astride their nose, taking them off, putting them on again, wiping them clean, toying with them, reading secret wills with them, and forgetting them on the scene of the crime." "In the Italian language the only adjective that conveys a disparaging meaning without the -accio desinence is precisely occhialuto, i.e. bespectacled." Othe~ incidental historical details in the book include a table of annual foreign export amounts in lire for the period 1965 to 1984 showing a 79 times increase of spectacle frame sales, a description of the threefold growth of MIDO, the ophthalmic trade fair started in Milan in 1970, and a statement of the origins and role of ANFAO, the acronym for the Italian name of the sponsoring Italian association. 9 European optometric history: The August 1988 issue of Interoptics, Bulletin of the International Optometric and Optical League, No. 83, includes two articles of historical interest. One, on page 3, is in celebration of the 80th birthday of IOOL Vice President Emeritus Peter Abel originally of Berlin, Germany, and presently retired in Australia. His life and career are a living history of Augenoptik. Included with the article are two photographs taken of a group of former students of the Berlin School of Optics on a tour in London in 1937. Mr. and Mrs. Abel were both in the group. The other article on page 7, is a landmark report of the new optometric regulations in Norway by Svein Hommerstad. The new law was enacted in June 1988 and effectively transfers the profession from its long years in the handicraft ministry to that of health personnel. This appears to be the first such legislative action on the European Continent. Mr. Hommerstad gives an interesting history of how this change was accomplished. Optometric legislative review: "Optometry: a legal history" is the title of an article by John G. Classe' in the August 1988 issue of the Journal of the American Optometric Association, Vol. 59, No. 8. pp. 641-650. The article opens with a review of medical and ophthalmological licensing and organizational developments in America late in the 19th century and their threatening hegemonic effects on optometry. Then follows an account of optometrist's efforts to retain their centuries-long vocational independence. Much is derived from Prentice's book, and apparently most of the balance from unidentified optometric periodicals of the past fifty years. Nine figures are photographs of Charles and James Prentice, Minnesota's first optometry board, Albert Fitch, Fred Baker, Elwin Marg, Bernard Grohlman, Alden N. Haffner, and leaders of the first diagnostic and first therapeutic drug bills. Historical tidbits: In an updated supplement of the November 1988 issue of Contact Lens Spectrum (Vol. 3, No. 11) entitled "Contact Lenses & You" appear three anonymously authored items of historical interest. On page 2 is a photograph of the Wiesbaden lens, a glass shell made by F. A. Muller of Germany in 1887 to be worn on the eye. The illustration is accompanied by four short paragraphs of historical comment. The source of the illustration and the present location of the lens are not given. 10 On the same page is a reproduction of a May 3, 1967, handwritten memo from "RR" (Ronald Reagan) to a Dr. Kaye relative to Reagan's wearing of contact lenses. The supplementary comments are anonymously authored but credit for the memo reproduction is given to "William R. Coleman, 0.0., past president of The Manuscript Society." On pages 10-11 is a colorfully illustrated article entitled "Lights, Camera, Contacts!", subtitled "The story of contact lenses in the entertainment industry is a tale of beauties and beasts." An author is not named, but it does seem that Morton K. Greenspoon, 0.0., was the primary resource by reason of similarity with another article authored by him elsewhere. The magazine is intended to be a reception room information piece. Helmet-mounted goggles: "Hands-off Night Vision" is the title of a staff report on the development of helmet-mounted night-vision and sighting systems technology appearing on pages 121-122 of the August 1988 issue of Photonics Spectra, Vol. 22, No. 8. The development is referred to as having a forty years' history of designing electro-optical systems that are mounted to helmets to allow free use of the wearer's hands. Two "streams of development" are identified. One is the self-contained goggle system for night vision. The other is the helmet-mounted sight used to aim turreted or gimbal-mounted equipment. The objectives and inventive accomplishments are chronologically described item by item. The early 1970's ·saw the development of visually coupled systems providing the wearer with imagery of the external view through a helmet-mounted display. Cressets, candlewood, and rushlights: The title ILLUMINATION ENGINEERING with the subtitle "From Edison's Lamp to the Laser" suggests an interesting historical resource; which it is and isn't. Competently authored by Joseph B. Murdoch and published by Macmillan Publishing Co. in 1985, the book of 541 pages is essentially a scientific and technical treatment of lighting per se. In other words the subtitle refers to the breadth of topical coverage rather than to any chronological sequence of technological developments except that the dates of isolated developments are incidentally identified in the very sophisticated text. Nevertheless by way of introduction on the opening page the author indulges in a bit of reminding us that in medieval times 11 metal fire baskets called cressets were developed to hold glowing pine knots and were suspended from ceilings or wall brackets. Pine wood use for light in colonial times was called candlewood. Early settlers dried certain reeds or rushes and dipped them in grease or fat for portable lighting called rushlights. Then, says he, there followed in chronological order, oil lamps, candles, gas lighting, and electric lamps. The "rise and fall" of each of the first three of these in various parts of the world are briefly covered in the first three pages. The early developments of the fourth, electric lights, are covered in three more pages. He identifies the first recorded man-made electric light as that of Otto Von Guericke in 1650. It "consisted of a chain attached to a spinning sulfur ball. When he held his hand against the ball, sparks jumped from the chain." An explanation was not included. A hundred years ago: Even as recently as a century ago so little was published under direct or exclusive optometric or ophthalmic optical sponsorship that most of our history has to be gleaned, indeed extracted, from others' journals. So it is not easy to indulge in the popular editorial pastime of perusing early serial publications for newsy tidbits to appear under the enticing caption of "A hundred years ago". But the urge is there, and so it was that I pulled off the library shelf the only 1888 journal potentially identifiable with optometry, a fragile and time-weathered bound Volume 9 of Centralzeitung fur Optik und Mechanik. It consists of 24 issues, a total of 288 two-column pages of rather small print with numerous illustrations, photographs, drawings, and tables. Leafing through it at the rate of, perhaps, twenty seconds per page to scan the article titles and paragraph headings I found little optometric, though a great deal on prec1s1on optical instrumentation and technology. On page 60 is a succinctly detailed account of German patent No. 40305 of 28 January 1887 by George Linke! in NUrnberg for a combination lorgnette and pince­ nez with an easily removable and reattachable handle for lorgnette use and a readily detachable and reconnectable connector bar for removing half of the pince-nez. Presumably it was intended to simplify the meeting of social demands for either a monocular lorgnette or a binocular pince-nez at a moment's notice. It was illustrated in sketch form. On pages 73-74 is a rather substantive article on artificial eyes of vulcanite and celluloid with considerable history and technical discussion of materials, applications, and suitableness by Prof. Dr. Hermann Cohn, an ophthalmologist in Brezlau. On pages 12 256-259 Dr. w. Grosse of Vegesack (near extensive discourse on the science of contributions of Goethe, Newton, Helmholtz, et al. Bremen) gave a rather color, reviewing the Hering, Young, Maxwell, There may have been several other entries that I missed in this hasty scan, especially among the dozens and dozens of listings of patents. The conspicuous absence of any spectacle lens optics or sight-testing technology reinforces my theory that spectaclemakers guild secrecy was still a prevailing factor, especially in Germany. It will be interesting to scan subsequent issues of this long-lived journal to observe when and how the guild influence subsided. H.W H. Historical tidbits of popular interest: It is gratifying to find references to historical optometric landmarks in popular reading material. Most recently such inclusions are found in a series of 12 brochures designed by the American Optometric Association as quarterly newsletters available to optometrists as mailing pieces of interest to their patients: Entitled Now See This, most of the twelve fliers include highlighted items or "Did you know?" statements pointing up such historical details as the role of the moveable-type printing press in the demand for spectacles, contact lens invention, use of scleral contacts, first school for the blind, first eyeglasses in America, invention of spectacle temples, early use of quartz and crystal for lenses, the role of vanity in eyeglass usage, early Chinese tinted lenses, the evolution of spectacle frames, and eyeglasses of various u.s. presidents. One important error is the statement that the profession of optometry was born in 1898! " Editors: Henry W Hofstetter 2615 Windermere Woods Drive Bloomington, IN 47401 USA Douglas K. Penisten College of Optometry Northeastern State University Tahlequah, OK 74464 USA 1989-20-01-001 1989-20-01-002 1989-20-01-003 1989-20-01-004 1989-20-01-005 1989-20-01-006 1989-20-01-007 1989-20-01-008 1989-20-01-009 1989-20-01-010 1989-20-01-011 1989-20-01-012