Founder of Scientific Ophthalmology
Singapore Med J 2007; 48 (9) : 797 Medicine in Stamps Albrecht von Graefe (1828-1870): founder of scientific ophthalmology Tan S Y, MD, JD and Zia J K, BA* Professor of Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Law, University of Hawaii *Research done during senior medical clerkship, John A Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii Ancient Greece counted on some 30 different many famous students, including Argyll Robertson, gods to protect her health, but none was Friedrich Homer and Theodore Billroth. designated guardian of sight. The Pharaohs of Egypt trusted special court physicians THE ACADEMICIAN Von Graefe became an asso- to treat trachoma, the dreaded chlamydial eye disease ciate professor, then a full professor of ophthalmology that plagued its citizens, but they were helpless against at the University of Berlin, and was the first German its blinding outcome. Through the centuries, physicians professor of eye diseases. Enthusiastic with high mostly fumbled when it came to eye ailments, leaving expectations, he captured the eager minds of many, them to the machinations of quacks. Little was known through outstanding lectures at the university, writings of the physiology of the human eye, and treatment in his journal, or discussions at meetings. One of his modalities were rudimentary and ineffective. However, protegés, Karl Weber, noted: "One was spell -bound in in the mid -nineteen century, a quartet of gifted European his clinic, as if in a magic place. The multitude of new doctors pooled their insight and experience to form a facts and viewpoints ever heard before, the fascinating discipline that offered new diagnostic presentation and glowing enthusiasm and therapeutic interventions for the z acted like a revelation." Another admirer, â Mà[ilvdu first time.
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