Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/73

 LARYNGOLOGY lxiii

we find a "Treatise on the Semeiology of the Eye," by Lobstein, printed in New York in 1830, and "A Manual of the Diseases of the Eye," by Littell, published in Philadelphia in 1873.

During this period a number of monographs likewise appeared. Among early writers the names of Stout, Wallace, Dix, Hocken, Hamil- ton, Foote, Isaac Hays, and H. W. Williams must be mentioned.

Until a late period, diseases of the eye were taught by the chair of surgery in American medical colleges. The earliest special course of instruction was given by Dr. Frick in Baltimore in 1822. In 1860 Holmes became lecturer in Rush Medical College in Chicago, and in the same year E. Williams became the first professor of ophthalmology at Miami Medical College of Cincinnati.

In the development of the ophthalmoscope we must mention the names of Wadsworth, who invented the "tilting mirror," and of Loring whose ophthalmoscope is one of the most convenient and widely used, and whose two volume "Text-book on Ophthalmoscopy" (1886) is one of the most valuable in the English language.

Among those who distinguished themselves in ophthalmic surgery are: Hays, Dix, Levis, Horner, H. W. Williams, Agnew, Holmes, Hotz and Knapp.

In the history of ophthalmology in America the formation of the American Ophthalmological Society in 1864, and the publication of Knapp's "Archives of Ophthalmology" in 1869, mark important dates.

In surveying the medical history of America, the pre-eminent services rendered to ophthalmology are the discovery of the part played by errors of refraction in the production of nervous symptoms and especially of headaches, by Weir Mitchell and Thomson of Philadelphia, and of the abnormalities of equilibrium of the ocular muscular apparatus and the resulting disturbances, by Stevens. These discoveries overshadow all the other numerous contributions to clinical ophthalmology and mark great and beneficent advances in this specialty.

Harry Friedenwald.

Laryngology. The history of laryngology in this country as elsewhere properly begins with the discovery of the laryngoscope. Prior to this, however, some diseases of the throat had been studied and more or less written concerning them. The earliest reference in America seems to have been published by ( 'apt. Morton in his " Now England Memorial." In this he says: "In 1650 a disease of the mouth and throat prevailed which proved mortal to many in a short time." In "An Account of Two Voyage to New England made during the Year 1658 and the year 1663," by John Josselin, it is stated of the Bettlers, "Also they are troubled with a dis-