Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/72

 lxii INTRODUCTION

ical and Chirurgical Faculty of Maryland adopted a resolution in 1805 that "the Board of Examiners be authorized to grant special licenses to dent- ists and oculists to practise in their respective branches, subjecting them to an examination only on the branches they possess . . . ." It is probable that these "oculists" did not stand in good repute and that they belonged to the class of traveling charlatans which had existed for several hundred years in Europe. As quacks cut for stone, so quacks operated for cataract. Thus Hirschberg quotes Lazare Riviere (1589-1655) . . . : "Because of its uncertainty the operation for cataract should not be performed by the regular surgeon but by the quacks who travel about in this practice."

A few papers, of no importance, published in the early part of the last century are evidence of an awakening interest on the part of general practitioners in the eye and its diseases. The importance of this sub- ject was recognized more and more. In 1817 Elisha North of New London opened the first eye infirmary in this country. The New York Eye Infirmary came into existence in 1820, through the efforts of Edward Delafield and John Kearney Rodgers, and George McClellan established a similar institution in Philadelphia in 1821. Dr. George Frick opened an eye department in connection with the Baltimore General Dispensary in 1823 and one of the four wards of the newly completed Baltimore Infirmary was devoted to diseases of the eye. The Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary was founded in 1824, and Wills Eye Hospital of Phila- delphia in 1830. The men who founded and served at these institutions were for the most part physicians and surgeons who had acquired special knowledge of ophthalmology and skill in ophthalmic surgery in European hospitals — only a few of the earlier men like Frick, Littell and Isaac Hays devoted themselves exclusively to the treatment of diseases of the eye.

A description of ophthalmic practice in Philadelphia about 1860 is given by Black in his "Forty Years in the Medical Profession:" "Forty years ago in Philadelphia there were few specialists. In the eye, Dr. Isaac Hays and Dr. Littell did little or no other work. They were both very eminent men of their day, and Dr. Plays was a very scholarly man and cultivated gentleman. ... All the general surgeons like Pancoast, Gross, Agnew, Morton, Hunt, Levis, and others, did eye-work. Ezra Dyer came to Philadelphia fresh from Von Graefe's clinic in Berlin, and soon established a large practice. He was followed by George Straw- bridge, a most accomplished oculist and eye surgeon. ..."

The first text-book on ophthalmology printed in the United States was an American edition of Saunders, published in Philadelphia in 1821. In 1823 Frick's "Treatise on Disease of the Eye," the first work of an American writer, appeared, which in its turn was re-published in England. Besides a number of English works which were re-published in America,