C L I N I C A L A N D E X P E R I M E N T A L OPTOMETRYProfile: Donald Herbert Schultz Watkins

PROFILE Donald Herbert Schultz

Intellectual, inventor and benefactor 1910–1987

Clin Exp Optom 2004; 87: 3: 187–190

Rod D Watkins PhD MAppSc LOSc DIC Laubman and Pank were prolific inven- Scan Optics, , tors. Between 1919 and 1928 they de- signed, patented and built lens grinding machinery, a mobile optometry consulting I first met Don Schultz in 1963, at an op- room that they called the Perspectoscope tometry conference in Sydney. He was a and an instrument for measuring visual middle-aged, balding man with an im- reaction times. They developed a produc- mensely kind demeanour. I was an under- tion process for the then revolutionary graduate, somewhat intense and over- solid one-piece bifocal lenses. Previously, serious. I wanted to talk to Don about bifocals had been made as two separate optics. He wanted to talk to me about some lenses cemented together. They intro- calculations he was doing on the flight of duced the manufacture of artificial eyes a spinning cricket ball. I learned later that to their practice. he had been a first-class cricketer and had In 1927, Laubman and Pank went to revisited this problem many times. I also Jena in (which had been the learned that one of the great pleasures of home of the Carl Zeiss company since knowing him was his enthusiasm for 1846) to study optometry and ophthalmic understanding the world around him. optics.4 While in Europe, they delivered Later in 1970, when I began work with to Albert Einstein data on a solar eclipse Don at SOLA International, he was inter- in Queensland. They went on to the UK, ested in the design of the pouring lip of a est group optometry practice and one of where they represented Australia at the jug to eliminate drips and we spent some the world’s largest ophthalmic lens com- World Optical Conference, and to the time on the mathematics of fluid rheology. panies. He was a planner and participator United States, where they visited the two I still have the copy of Flatland 1 that he gave in optometry teaching, research and pro- major ophthalmic manufacturers of the me, which draws on the space-time discus- fessional organisation. He was an extraor- time, Bausch and Lomb and the Ameri- sions of Einstein, Lorentz and Whitehead, dinarily generous benefactor to vision can Optical Company. and which led us on to Sommerville’s research. Don Schultz was indentured as an opti- Geometry on N Dimensions 2 and Bertrand Don Schultz was born in 1910 and grew cal apprentice in the Laubman & Pank Russell’s Foundations of Geometry.3 I recall up in the small town of Summertown in practice when he was a young teenager and that for a while we were determined to the Adelaide Hills. As a youth, he was this environment of enthusiasm, invention make sense of Reimann’s hyperbolic co- greatly influenced by his uncle, Carl and intellect shaped his life. ordinates to describe visual space. Laubman. Laubman and his friend Harold Optometry was recognised in South Don was primarily interested in optom- Pank had formed the optometry practice Australia by the passage of the Optom- etry and optics. He developed a remark- of Laubman & Pank in 1908. This was a etrists Act in June 1921,5 the third such able number of optical instruments and remarkable partnership that combined a state act to be passed in Australia. Of the machines, for ophthalmic and defence commitment to leading edge optometric first six optometrists to be registered under use. He played a fundamental role in the practice with an emphasis on innovation the act, four were indentured to Laubman formation and growth of Australia’s larg- and intellectual pursuit. & Pank. At the same time, there was much

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interest in establishing an optometry course cators, the refurbishment of 17,000 pairs design calculations that were carried out in Adelaide and in 1925, a course was com- of binoculars and the production of six using seven-figure logarithms. There were menced at the . This different types of optical glass. Schultz no electronic calculators and slide rules course is said5 to be the first university worked on many of these projects and at were not sufficiently accurate. Computers course in optometry in the British Empire, the end of the war he transferred several capable of optical design were more than although it did not lead to a university quali- of them to the Laubman & Pank optom- a decade into the future in Australia. Don’s fication. The head of the course was the etry practice. book of logarithmic tables was the size of head of the Department of Physics, Pro- Don Schultz became a director of a large novel and an optical design that fessor Sir Kerr Grant. The first year was Laubman & Pank in 1944 and three years would today be considered relatively trivial largely optics, taught by Marcus (later Pro- later with David L Pank, the son of Harold would take thousands of lines of hand- fessor Sir Mark) Oliphant FRS who was later Pank, purchased a controlling interest in written calculations and sometimes weeks appointed Governor of . the practice. David Pank went on to chair to complete. Don Schultz was one of the first students the boards of directors of Laubman & In the mid-1950s, events took a differ- to enrol and in 1929, he became one of Pank and SOLA, as well as several other ent turn. Schultz’s attention was drawn to the first three graduates of the course. His companies and government bodies and to a new plastic material that had been used intellectual prowess and insatiable curios- become president of the major national during the war as a lining for fuel tanks in ity commended him to his scientifically dis- and international management organisa- aircraft. The material, called CR39 (Co- tinguished teachers and he remained tions.6 It is easy to see a parallel between lumbia Resin Batch Number 39) by its friends with Kerr Grant and the partnership of Don Schultz and David manufacturers, the Pittsburg Plate Glass throughout their lives. Pank and that of their uncle and father. Company, had excellent optical properties In 1931, just two years after he had com- Don established an Instrument Con- and relatively high abrasion resistance. pleted the optometry course and at the struction Department in the Laubman & Laubman & Pank had been making plastic age of 21, Schultz became the principal Pank optometry practice, as a base for con- ophthalmic lenses for many years by ma- lecturer in the course, a position he held tinuing the wartime defence work and ex- chining them from methacrylate sheet. for the next 24 years. He taught physical tending into new technologies. The scope These lenses were light in weight but were optics in first year, physiological optics in of work undertaken gives an indication of difficult to polish accurately and were very second year and clinical optometry in his versatility and productivity. The Instru- easily scratched. Schultz envisaged casting third year. He also taught optics in the sci- ment Construction Department carried lenses from CR39 by creating a cavity be- ence degree program of the university. out binocular and camera repairs. It made tween two polished glass moulds separated Don Schultz was registered as an optom- an optical range finder, an aerial photo- by a plastic spacer, and pouring the liquid etrist in 1930. By all accounts, he was a stereoscope, a low f-number Cassegrain CR39 monomer into the cavity and poly- good optometrist. Wright5 says, ‘He was a telescope with a hyperbolic figure on the merising it. The lenses would take the good clinician, indeed for his time he was primary mirror, Schmidt camera correc- polish of the surfaces of the glass moulds. remarkable’. tor plates and signal lamps for the navy. He obtained a sample of the monomer but In 1952, it made catadioptric cameras for had to find a catalyst to initiate polymeri- Inventor the Blue Streak missile tests carried out by sation. He approached his colleagues at His interest lay more in lens and instru- the Weapons Research Establishment at the the University of Adelaide, who developed ment design than in clinical optometry. The Woomera Rocket Range. It made a tool- a technique for making benzyl peroxide. Second World War forced him further in maker’s profile projector and an optical This eventually proved unsatisfactory as this direction. There was little optical de- device for road marking. It made an inno- the polymerised lenses were too soft and sign expertise in Australia at the time and vative biocular catadioptric magnifier for too yellow. Schultz went back to the no precision optical glass manufacturing low vision patients, a visual field screener, university and was helped to develop a capability. The war required a supply of a Greens-type refractor head and vision process for making isopropyl peroxy optical instruments. An Optical Munitions screeners for industry and for children’s percarbonate, the initiator that was used Panel was formed in July 1940 to co-ordi- vision. In 1953, it became the first labora- for the next 20 years to make several hun- nate efforts around Australia and Schultz tory in Australia to use high vacuum coat- dreds of millions of lenses. was co-opted to work under Kerr Grant at ing technology for optical surfaces. In 1956, To cast CR39 lenses in large numbers the Weapons Research Establishment in it patented a concept for making one-piece required a great deal of innovative poly- Adelaide. By the time the Optical Muni- industrial eye protectors. With Don’s mer chemistry, physics, mechanical engi- tions Panel was disbanded, after the war in brother, Ross A Schultz, it developed lens neering and process control. The problem 1945, it had overseen the development and processing machines including a lens edg- that confronted Schultz concerned volu- manufacture of 19 optical instruments, ing machine and a diamond generator. metric shrinkage. Molecular bond forma- including submarine and tank periscopes, It was during this time that Don Schultz tion during polymerisation caused the range finders and aircraft glide slope indi- became known for his painstaking optical material volume to shrink by 14 per cent.

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While this was happening, it had to stay in When Don invited me to join him at vision mirrors for cars. It made a visual contact with the glass moulds or the lens Black Forest in January 1970, SOLA had field screener and two different central would be defective. It was necessary to grown to almost 200 people and was burst- field tangent screens. control precisely the temperature during ing at the seams. There was a small office Perhaps the best-known of Don Schultz’s the curing cycle, to design moulds with just with five desks and no possibility of more, work is the development of the Schultz- the correct amount of flexibility and to so Don and I shared a desk sitting facing Crock binocular indirect ophthalmoscope. calculate the mould shape change during each other. He was a good teacher, sup- Gerard Crock, Professor of Ophthalmol- curing so this could be compensated for portive and encouraging. His lessons and ogy at The University of , ap- in the mould design and manufacture. times of deep thought were invariably proached SOLA in 1965 with a prototype The initial work to make a plano lens of accompanied by much smoke from a of the world’s first spectacle-mounted in- accurate power and acceptable quality in- favourite pipe. His manner was always direct ophthalmoscope. Schultz then took volved a large amount of experimentation gentlemanly and imperturbable, although responsibility for designing the instrument and many mould designs. Don Schultz, often distracted. for commercial viability. The Schultz- with his seven-figure log tables and his It is fair to say that Don had little inter- Crock ophthalmoscope received an Aus- reams of calculations, became legendary. est in the day-to-day management issues tralian Design Council award for outstand- Later when powered finished stock lenses of the company. During meetings, it was ing industrial design. It remained in were produced, each with a different common to see him covering his papers production for the next 35 years and many mould configuration, these calculations with pencilled equations and optical dia- thousands of units were produced and sold had to be repeated hundreds of times. grams, as he thought about some design all over the world. The first CR39 lenses cast by Laubman problem. He would work for weeks on an Crock approached SOLA again in 1972 & Pank were technically interesting but it instrument, the design of which interested with an enhanced model of the ophthal- was not clear whether they would be com- him but which had limited sales potential. moscope, which incorporated Galilean mercially accepted. In 1959, Don Schultz His priorities were often decided by social telescopes to make retinal surgery easier. went to the UK and Europe on a six-month need and he spent a great deal of time This instrument was called the COMIDO trip to look at the new technology of thin thinking about how he could help people (Combined Operating Magnifier and In- film surface coating and to investigate the with low visual acuity by designing appro- direct Ophthalmoscope). In 1975, Schultz potential for marketing the refractor head priate lenses and reading aids. and I, with the Department of Ophthal- that he had designed. At the same time, he At that time, as well as carrying out the mology, were jointly awarded the Prince took some sample CR39 lenses. This trip CR39 mould calculations, he was working Philip Prize for Australian Design for this was to prove the trigger for the growth of on plastic fibre optics, fully cast CR39 spec- instrument. an extraordinary company. Schultz re- tacle mounted Galilean telescopes, a peri- Don’s work at Laubman & Pank and at turned to Australia enthusiastic about the scopic device for pest control workers and SOLA was not his only interest. When op- potential for CR39 lenses. the mathematics of complex high order tometry in Australia moved towards a As a result of his report, in July 1960 toroidal surfaces produced by cylinder national health scheme in the early 1960s, Laubman & Pank renamed an existing sub- generator surfacing machines. I had ac- he chaired the Statistics Committee of the sidiary company, Photographic Supplies cess to the university computing facilities (then) Australian Optometrical Associa- Limited, as Scientific Optical Laboratories of the day and was able to write optical tion, which developed the necessary sta- of Australia Pty Ltd (later to become SOLA design programs, so generally Don did the tistics on patient access and fee structures. International Pty Ltd) for the purposes of conceptual work and I produced the data. He was a member of the (then) Standards continuing the binocular repairs and de- The technology base of the company was Association of Australia committees on fence optical work, developing the CR39 broad. In addition to developing CR39 ophthalmic optics and industrial eye pro- technology and designing, making and sell- lenses and CR39 sheet, it was one of the tection for many years. He was a member ing optical surfacing machinery with Don’s first in the world to manufacture commer- of the Australian Institute of Physics, the brother Ross. The company initially had cial helium-neon lasers. It made a servo- Optical Society of America and the Aus- nine staff, including Don’s nephew Glen controlled Fabry-Perot interferometer for tralian Optometrical Association for 50 Schultz and Noel Roscrow, who as manag- the analysis of solar spectra, particularly years. He attended the meetings of ing director was to become the driving in Antarctica. It continued to refurbish ANZAAS (the Australian and New Zealand force for growth over the next 25 years. binoculars and to make defence optical Association for the Advancement of Sci- Don Schultz and David Pank were ap- equipment including periscopes, mortar ence) for many years, when they were the pointed directors. The company was physi- sights and missile cameras. It made main forum for optometric research and cally separated from Laubman & Pank in toolroom profile projectors and the low published several original optics research 1962 by a move to Black Forest, a suburb vision aids that Schultz had designed at papers in the Australian Journal of Optom- of Adelaide and later to Lonsdale in the Laubman & Pank. It made glass plano etry, the predecessor to Clinical and Experi- south of Adelaide. lenses, finished sunglasses and CR39 rear mental Optometry.

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Through the 1960s and 1970s, Don still completed and taught did not provide him played occasional cricket and tennis, with either a degree or a diploma. Al- which he had also played at a high level in though he was a leading optical physicist his youth. He took great pleasure from his for most of his life, he achieved this with- membership of the Savage Club, one of out formal qualifications and was almost the world’s oldest men’s clubs (it was solely self-taught. formed in London in 1857), in which in- At the ceremony at which his honorary tellectuals from literature, the fine arts and Doctor of Science was conferred, he was science met socially over dinner. He en- extremely frail and was not able to speak. joyed the company of his wife Joyce,7 He died just a few months later, aged 77. whose zany sense of humour seemed to At the time of his death, the optometry ever perplex him. In many ways, Joyce acted practice of Laubman & Pank had branches as a counterpoint to Don; where he was and consulting rooms in 248 towns and rather quiet and unassuming, Joyce was cities,4 SOLA Optical had manufacturing lively and outgoing. plants in 11 countries and employed 6,000 people8 and the NVRI was in its 15th year Generous benefactor of world standard vision research. These Don and Joyce provided financial support are lasting tributes to a kind and generous to many causes. In 1979 and 1980 they, man of great intellect. along with Eulalie Laubman (daughter of Carl Laubman) provided the fledgling Na- REFERENCES tional Vision Research Institute (NVRI) of 1. Square A. Flatland—A Romance of Many Australia with an endowment of $350,000, Dimensions. Oxford: Blackwell; 1962. 2. Sommerville DMY. An Introduction to the which was central to the viability of the Geometry on N Dimensions. New York: institute. Don provided similar support for Dover; 1958. research in meteorology at Flinders Uni- 3. Russell B. An Essay on the Foundations of versity, as a gesture of personal support for Geometry. New York: Dover; 1956. a friend, while Joyce supported the Red 4. Towler D. Men of Vision. A History of Cross. With a further bequest from Don, Laubman and Pank. Adelaide: Laubman and Pank; 1988. the Schultz-Laubman-Schultz Endowment 5. Wright C. History of Australian Optometry. Fund of the NVRI has grown to more than Carlton: Australian Optometrical Associa- $4.5 million. tion; 1988. Don Shultz retired in 1976. He was 6. Watkins RD. Obituary, David L Pank AM awarded Honorary Life Membership of AFC. Clin Exp Optom 2004; 87: 2: 121-123. 7. Cole BL. Obituary, Joyce Schultz. Clin Exp the Victorian College of Optometry in Optom 1999; 82: 212-213. 1980 and the foyer of the main lecture 8. Linn R. Breaking the Mould. The History theatre in the Department of Optometry of SOLA Optical. Cherry Gardens SA: His- and Visual Sciences is named after him. torical Consultants; 2000. The portrait of Don that hangs in the foyer and which is reproduced here was com- missioned by a group of friends at SOLA in 1980 and presented to him in gratitude. He was a Foundation Member, a Gover- nor and a Life Member of the National Vision Research Institute. In 1987, Don Schultz was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science honoris causa by the Flinders University of South Aus- tralia for his contribution to research and scholarship in optical physics over almost 50 years. This was Don’s first tertiary quali- fication. Although he had taught optom- etry within a university for almost a quar- ter of a century, the optometry course he

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