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Historic Vignettes
Vol. 107, No.6
Historic Vignettes
The Glaucomas. Edited by Robert Ritch, M. Bruce Shields, and Theodore Krupin. St. Louis, C. V. Mosby, 1989. 1,415 pages, index, illustrated. $160 (two volumes)
Retinal Detachment Surgery, ed. 2. By A. H. Chingell. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1988. 162 pages, index, illustrated. $72.50
Historic
Vignettes
Franclscus Cornelis Danders
(1818-1889) March 24, 1989, marked the centenary of the death of Franciscus Cornelis Donders, professor of physiology at the University of Utrecht. Additionally the year 1989 marks the 125th anniversary of the publication in English of "On Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye," a book that influenced ophthalmology almost as much as the description of the ophthalmoscope years earlier. Donders was born May 27, 1818, in Tilburg, a manufacturing town in the south of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. He was the ninth child and the first and only son of parents of modest circumstances. Four sisters died before he was born and his father, aged 64, died six months afterwards. From his 7th to his 13th year, young Donders attended the school in the village of Duizel near his home. He showed such precocity in arithmetic that the villagers would stand him on a table in the village inn and give him sums to solve for a half pence. His skill was such that he became the paymaster of a local employer and was responsible for the accuracy of the village clock. He had no further mathematical training. From ages 11 to 13 years he was a tutor at the village school and received a small stipend. His mother wished him to become a Catholic priest
691
and he attended the minor seminary in Boxmeer where he learned to write and speak Latin and French fluently, and Greek less fluently. He acquired English from his school mates. He was a skilled musician and played the second violin in quartets. In 1835, at the age of 17, he entered the School of Military Medicine at Utrecht. Fifty years later, on the occasion of his jubilee, he stated: Indescribable was the impression made upon me here by the chemical lectures and experiments of Nicholaas de Fremery. When for the first time, I mastered the notion that all that exists, in its infinite variety, is composed of a relatively small number of elements, which in certain proportions unite and reunite, it seemed to me as if, with the creation of the elements, the whole of nature had been given, and my imagination worked this out its own way. Later on I became especially interested in Physiology, as taught by Schroeder van der Kolk.
After four years of medical study Donders was permitted to treat enlisted men and their families and officers but not others. He therefore devoted a year to general medical studies but was not given credit for two years of military medicine and was refused admission to a degree at the University of Utrecht. He applied for the degree at the University of Leiden, where he defended his dissertation in Latin, "Dissertatio Inauguralis Sistens Observationes Anatomico-Pathologicas de Centro Nervosa," and received the doctor of medicine degree (October 1840). In February 1840, Donders became a junior military surgeon and sanitary officer at the garrison at Vlissingue (Flushing). Shortly afterward (August 1841), he was promoted to the army headquarters at the Hague where he perfected his speaking and writing in French, English, and German. In 1842 he transferred to Utrecht as docent at the Military Medical School to teach anatomy, histology, and physiology, a task that required 18 lectures a week for 46 weeks. In 1846, to supplement his meager military income, Donders published the Dutch translation of Professor C. G. Theodor Reute's (of G6ttingen) "Lehrbuch der Augenheilkunde." This kindled his interest in the eye and ophthalmology. In the next two years he wrote major articles concerning ocular movements, entoptic phenomena of the eye, accornmoda-
692
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
tive esotropia, prisms for esotropia, and corneal regeneration. These were in addition to seven other papers dealing with physiologic topics. In 1847 Donders was named professor extraordinarius at the University of Utrecht rather than the military school. He volunteered to give courses in forensic medicine, anthropology (especially for students of theology and law), general biology, and ophthalmology. His Jan. 28, 1848 inaugural dissertation at the University, "Harmony of Animal Life, A Manifestation of Laws" (De harmonie van het disrlijkeleven; die openbaring van wetten, Inwijdingsrede, hijhet aanvaarden van het hoogleeraarsambt), reflected Donders' views on conservation of energy. Years later he sent a copy to Darwin in a note of thanks for "Descent of Man." Darwin responded, "It is clear to me that you were as near as possible in preceding me on the subject of Natural Selection." Subsequently Donders visited Darwin at Down and conducted several experiments cited in "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals." Again to supplement his income Donders edited the "Netherlands Lancet" (Nederlandsch lancet, s2 [1845-1857], aan de Utrechtische hoogeschool) and was a coeditor of "Contributions to Anatomy and Physiology" (Hollanddisches Beitrage zuden anatomischen und physiologischen wissenschaften [18461848]). In 1855 he joined von Arlt as a coeditor of von Graefe's "Archiv fur Ophthalmologie." A textbook on physiology intended as a series (Physiologie des Menschen) extended only to the first volume on special senses. Additionally, Donders became rector of the University in 1848, a post he resigned in 1853. In 1851 Donders purchased his first new suit in 12 years and visited London to attend the International Exhibition and its spectacular Crystal Palace. In the operating theater at Moorfields Eduard von Jaeger, of Vienna, introduced him to the youthful Albrecht von Graefe who was completing his three years of ophthalmic travel and awaiting completion of his clinic in Berlin. Both became house guests of William Bowman, already a renowned anatomist, physiologist, and ophthalmologist. Years later Donders wrote of Bowman and von Graefe, "the most precious treasures of my whole career." Von Graefe told of the invention of the ophthalmoscope by Helmholtz and Donders related Cramer's studies which demonstrated the increased curvature of the anterior lens surface in accommodation.
June, 1989
On his return home after a month in London, Donders visited Paris-at the suggestion of von Graefe. Here he observed the clinics of Sichel and Desmarres in Paris. He was elected an honorary member of the Biology Society that included Claude Bernard and Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard. Again in Utrecht, and still strapped for funds, Donders began to treat patients with eye disease in a clinic in the physiology laboratory. Awaiting the delivery of an ophthalmoscope from Helmholtz he constructed one, not of superimposed glass plates as the original, but with an observer's mirror having a central perforation. To manage his increasing practice, a house used as a nursing home during cholera epidemics was put at his disposal. Subsequently, the house next door was used as a hospital and outpatient clinic. In 1858 he opened the first eye hospital in The Netherlands but Bernardus Franciscus Suerman (1783-1861), the retired chairman of the Department of Surgery, was named its Director. Donders was not designated Director until 1878. Donders published annual reports of the hospital beginning in 1859. He provided similar yearbooks to the physiology laboratories after 1867. Donders remained a general physiologist as well as an ocular physiologist and eye physician. His separation of reaction time into sensory, cognitive, and motor components is still cited. His first zone theory of color vision in which a trichromatic receptor stage is followed by the opponent process is currently accepted. Sometime about 1852 he refused the invitation of the medical faculty of Bonn to succeed Helmholtz who was moving to Heidelberg. In 1862 Donders succeeded J. L. C. Schroeder van der Kolk as professor of physiology at Utrecht. In 1867 he opened the new building housing the physiology laboratories. In 1858 Donders published "Ametropie en hare gevolgen" (Ametropia and its consequences). This was published as a 160-page monograph in 1860. William Bowman, who was then active with the New Sydenham Society, invited him to publish it in English. In 1864 the New Sydenham Society published "On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye With a Preliminary Essay on Physiologic Dioptrics." This volume of some 635 pages summarizes Donders' early work on accommodation, refraction, physiology, and pharmacology of the ciliary muscle and iris. The volume revolutionized ophthalmology. The combination of ophthalmoscopy and accu-
Vol. 107, No.6
rate determination of refractive errors provided an explanation of asthenopia and amblyopia. Translations appeared in German, French, and Italian in 1866. The volume remains pertinent and useful to this day. The publishers, the New Sydenham Society, sponsored what today would be considered a book club, and provided their members with translations of medical works of continental authors. The original Sydenham Society was founded in 1843 and ceased operation in 1856. The New Sydenham Society with Jonathan Hutchinson as secretary followed almost immediately and published its first volume in 1859. The fourth volume in 1859 was a monograph from the physiology laboratories at Utrecht translated by Dr. W. D. Moore of Dublin, the translator of Donders' volume. Not everyone admired the book. Sir Jonathan Hutchinson telling of the New Sydenham Society described the volume some 47 years later:
693
Historic Vignettes
International Congress in 1879 and was vice president as well as a Royal Medalist of the Seventh International Medical Congress in 1881. From 1865 onward, he presided over the physical section of the Royal Academy of Sciences in the Netherlands. Donders retired in his 70th year and his jubilee was celebrated in Utrecht on May 27 and 28, 1888. He was decorated by the king and a commemorative medal was struck in his honor. Forty of his former pupils each contributed an original scientific paper to a festival volume, published by a committee. Donders wrote an autobiography. A large sum was subscribed and was assigned to the establishment of traveling fellowships in physiology and ophthalmology. While visiting England in October 1888, Donders suffered a cerebral vascular accident and had a relapse on his return home to Utrecht. He died March 24, 1889. FRANK W. NEWELL
Amongst the books for which the Council claims much credit is the thick volume in which Professor Donders made known to the English profession the invaluable additions to our knowledge as regards defects of refraction and accommodation. It placed upon a scientific basis our knowledge of the use of spectacles. This work was an original one, written specially for the Society by its distinguished author. For its initiation the Society was indebted to its then President, Sir William Bowman, who also devoted much labour to the revision of its proof sheets. Although I claim for the work that it was one of the most valuable that the Society ever undertook, I had reason to believe that it much damaged our members' list, since it constituted a volume concerning which nine out of ten of our subscribers could say most truthfully, "This book is not of the slightest value to me."
The book had exceptional influence in the United States. S. Weir Mitchell, a renowned neurologist (as well as poet, essayist, and novelist) published "Headaches From Eye Strain" in 1876. He emphasized the need to correct even the smallest degree of astigmatism. United States ophthalmologists adopted his credo with enthusiasm and medical ophthalmology and refraction was far more cultivated than on the Continent or Great Britain. Donders served as president of the Fourth International Congress of Ophthalmology in London in 1872 and the Seventh Congress in Heidelburg in 1888. He presided over the Sixth
Bibliograp
hy
Bowman, W.: In memoriam, Franciscus C. Donders. Proc. R. Soc. 49:7, 1891. Donders, F. c.: On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye. With a preliminary essay on Physiological Dioptics. Translated by Moore, W. D. London, The New Sydenham Society, 1864. Fisher, F. P., and Ten Doesschate, G.: Franciscus Cornelis Donders. Assen, Van Gorcum & Co., 1958. Hirschberg, J.: Geschicte der Augenheilkunde. IX Frans Comelis Donders (1818-1889) 174, Handbuch der Gesamten Augenh. Berlin, Springer, 1918. Hutchinson, J.: The New Sydenham Society. Retrospective memoranda. London, H. K. Lewis, 1911. Lebenson, J. E.: Donders and astigmatism. Am. J. Ophthalmol. 49:1053, 1960. Mitchell, S. W.: Headache from eye strain. Am. J. Med. Sci. 22:321, 1876. Nuel, J. P.: F. C. Donders et son Oeuvre. Ann. Oculist. 91:5, 1889. Obituary. Franz Cornelis Donders. Br. Med. J. 1:746,1889. Pfeiffer, R. L.: Frans Comelis Donders. Dutch physiologist and ophthalmologist. Bull N.Y. Acad. Med. 12:566, 1936. Williams, H. D.: Franciscus Cornelius (sic) Donders. Proc. Am. Acad. Arts Sci. 24:464, 1888-1889.
Historic Vignettes
The Glaucomas. Edited by Robert Ritch, M. Bruce Shields, and Theodore Krupin. St. Louis, C. V. Mosby, 1989. 1,415 pages, index, illustrated. $160 (two volumes)
Retinal Detachment Surgery, ed. 2. By A. H. Chingell. New York, Springer-Verlag, 1988. 162 pages, index, illustrated. $72.50
Historic
Vignettes
Franclscus Cornelis Danders
(1818-1889) March 24, 1989, marked the centenary of the death of Franciscus Cornelis Donders, professor of physiology at the University of Utrecht. Additionally the year 1989 marks the 125th anniversary of the publication in English of "On Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye," a book that influenced ophthalmology almost as much as the description of the ophthalmoscope years earlier. Donders was born May 27, 1818, in Tilburg, a manufacturing town in the south of the Kingdom of The Netherlands. He was the ninth child and the first and only son of parents of modest circumstances. Four sisters died before he was born and his father, aged 64, died six months afterwards. From his 7th to his 13th year, young Donders attended the school in the village of Duizel near his home. He showed such precocity in arithmetic that the villagers would stand him on a table in the village inn and give him sums to solve for a half pence. His skill was such that he became the paymaster of a local employer and was responsible for the accuracy of the village clock. He had no further mathematical training. From ages 11 to 13 years he was a tutor at the village school and received a small stipend. His mother wished him to become a Catholic priest
691
and he attended the minor seminary in Boxmeer where he learned to write and speak Latin and French fluently, and Greek less fluently. He acquired English from his school mates. He was a skilled musician and played the second violin in quartets. In 1835, at the age of 17, he entered the School of Military Medicine at Utrecht. Fifty years later, on the occasion of his jubilee, he stated: Indescribable was the impression made upon me here by the chemical lectures and experiments of Nicholaas de Fremery. When for the first time, I mastered the notion that all that exists, in its infinite variety, is composed of a relatively small number of elements, which in certain proportions unite and reunite, it seemed to me as if, with the creation of the elements, the whole of nature had been given, and my imagination worked this out its own way. Later on I became especially interested in Physiology, as taught by Schroeder van der Kolk.
After four years of medical study Donders was permitted to treat enlisted men and their families and officers but not others. He therefore devoted a year to general medical studies but was not given credit for two years of military medicine and was refused admission to a degree at the University of Utrecht. He applied for the degree at the University of Leiden, where he defended his dissertation in Latin, "Dissertatio Inauguralis Sistens Observationes Anatomico-Pathologicas de Centro Nervosa," and received the doctor of medicine degree (October 1840). In February 1840, Donders became a junior military surgeon and sanitary officer at the garrison at Vlissingue (Flushing). Shortly afterward (August 1841), he was promoted to the army headquarters at the Hague where he perfected his speaking and writing in French, English, and German. In 1842 he transferred to Utrecht as docent at the Military Medical School to teach anatomy, histology, and physiology, a task that required 18 lectures a week for 46 weeks. In 1846, to supplement his meager military income, Donders published the Dutch translation of Professor C. G. Theodor Reute's (of G6ttingen) "Lehrbuch der Augenheilkunde." This kindled his interest in the eye and ophthalmology. In the next two years he wrote major articles concerning ocular movements, entoptic phenomena of the eye, accornmoda-
692
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
tive esotropia, prisms for esotropia, and corneal regeneration. These were in addition to seven other papers dealing with physiologic topics. In 1847 Donders was named professor extraordinarius at the University of Utrecht rather than the military school. He volunteered to give courses in forensic medicine, anthropology (especially for students of theology and law), general biology, and ophthalmology. His Jan. 28, 1848 inaugural dissertation at the University, "Harmony of Animal Life, A Manifestation of Laws" (De harmonie van het disrlijkeleven; die openbaring van wetten, Inwijdingsrede, hijhet aanvaarden van het hoogleeraarsambt), reflected Donders' views on conservation of energy. Years later he sent a copy to Darwin in a note of thanks for "Descent of Man." Darwin responded, "It is clear to me that you were as near as possible in preceding me on the subject of Natural Selection." Subsequently Donders visited Darwin at Down and conducted several experiments cited in "The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals." Again to supplement his income Donders edited the "Netherlands Lancet" (Nederlandsch lancet, s2 [1845-1857], aan de Utrechtische hoogeschool) and was a coeditor of "Contributions to Anatomy and Physiology" (Hollanddisches Beitrage zuden anatomischen und physiologischen wissenschaften [18461848]). In 1855 he joined von Arlt as a coeditor of von Graefe's "Archiv fur Ophthalmologie." A textbook on physiology intended as a series (Physiologie des Menschen) extended only to the first volume on special senses. Additionally, Donders became rector of the University in 1848, a post he resigned in 1853. In 1851 Donders purchased his first new suit in 12 years and visited London to attend the International Exhibition and its spectacular Crystal Palace. In the operating theater at Moorfields Eduard von Jaeger, of Vienna, introduced him to the youthful Albrecht von Graefe who was completing his three years of ophthalmic travel and awaiting completion of his clinic in Berlin. Both became house guests of William Bowman, already a renowned anatomist, physiologist, and ophthalmologist. Years later Donders wrote of Bowman and von Graefe, "the most precious treasures of my whole career." Von Graefe told of the invention of the ophthalmoscope by Helmholtz and Donders related Cramer's studies which demonstrated the increased curvature of the anterior lens surface in accommodation.
June, 1989
On his return home after a month in London, Donders visited Paris-at the suggestion of von Graefe. Here he observed the clinics of Sichel and Desmarres in Paris. He was elected an honorary member of the Biology Society that included Claude Bernard and Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard. Again in Utrecht, and still strapped for funds, Donders began to treat patients with eye disease in a clinic in the physiology laboratory. Awaiting the delivery of an ophthalmoscope from Helmholtz he constructed one, not of superimposed glass plates as the original, but with an observer's mirror having a central perforation. To manage his increasing practice, a house used as a nursing home during cholera epidemics was put at his disposal. Subsequently, the house next door was used as a hospital and outpatient clinic. In 1858 he opened the first eye hospital in The Netherlands but Bernardus Franciscus Suerman (1783-1861), the retired chairman of the Department of Surgery, was named its Director. Donders was not designated Director until 1878. Donders published annual reports of the hospital beginning in 1859. He provided similar yearbooks to the physiology laboratories after 1867. Donders remained a general physiologist as well as an ocular physiologist and eye physician. His separation of reaction time into sensory, cognitive, and motor components is still cited. His first zone theory of color vision in which a trichromatic receptor stage is followed by the opponent process is currently accepted. Sometime about 1852 he refused the invitation of the medical faculty of Bonn to succeed Helmholtz who was moving to Heidelberg. In 1862 Donders succeeded J. L. C. Schroeder van der Kolk as professor of physiology at Utrecht. In 1867 he opened the new building housing the physiology laboratories. In 1858 Donders published "Ametropie en hare gevolgen" (Ametropia and its consequences). This was published as a 160-page monograph in 1860. William Bowman, who was then active with the New Sydenham Society, invited him to publish it in English. In 1864 the New Sydenham Society published "On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye With a Preliminary Essay on Physiologic Dioptrics." This volume of some 635 pages summarizes Donders' early work on accommodation, refraction, physiology, and pharmacology of the ciliary muscle and iris. The volume revolutionized ophthalmology. The combination of ophthalmoscopy and accu-
Vol. 107, No.6
rate determination of refractive errors provided an explanation of asthenopia and amblyopia. Translations appeared in German, French, and Italian in 1866. The volume remains pertinent and useful to this day. The publishers, the New Sydenham Society, sponsored what today would be considered a book club, and provided their members with translations of medical works of continental authors. The original Sydenham Society was founded in 1843 and ceased operation in 1856. The New Sydenham Society with Jonathan Hutchinson as secretary followed almost immediately and published its first volume in 1859. The fourth volume in 1859 was a monograph from the physiology laboratories at Utrecht translated by Dr. W. D. Moore of Dublin, the translator of Donders' volume. Not everyone admired the book. Sir Jonathan Hutchinson telling of the New Sydenham Society described the volume some 47 years later:
693
Historic Vignettes
International Congress in 1879 and was vice president as well as a Royal Medalist of the Seventh International Medical Congress in 1881. From 1865 onward, he presided over the physical section of the Royal Academy of Sciences in the Netherlands. Donders retired in his 70th year and his jubilee was celebrated in Utrecht on May 27 and 28, 1888. He was decorated by the king and a commemorative medal was struck in his honor. Forty of his former pupils each contributed an original scientific paper to a festival volume, published by a committee. Donders wrote an autobiography. A large sum was subscribed and was assigned to the establishment of traveling fellowships in physiology and ophthalmology. While visiting England in October 1888, Donders suffered a cerebral vascular accident and had a relapse on his return home to Utrecht. He died March 24, 1889. FRANK W. NEWELL
Amongst the books for which the Council claims much credit is the thick volume in which Professor Donders made known to the English profession the invaluable additions to our knowledge as regards defects of refraction and accommodation. It placed upon a scientific basis our knowledge of the use of spectacles. This work was an original one, written specially for the Society by its distinguished author. For its initiation the Society was indebted to its then President, Sir William Bowman, who also devoted much labour to the revision of its proof sheets. Although I claim for the work that it was one of the most valuable that the Society ever undertook, I had reason to believe that it much damaged our members' list, since it constituted a volume concerning which nine out of ten of our subscribers could say most truthfully, "This book is not of the slightest value to me."
The book had exceptional influence in the United States. S. Weir Mitchell, a renowned neurologist (as well as poet, essayist, and novelist) published "Headaches From Eye Strain" in 1876. He emphasized the need to correct even the smallest degree of astigmatism. United States ophthalmologists adopted his credo with enthusiasm and medical ophthalmology and refraction was far more cultivated than on the Continent or Great Britain. Donders served as president of the Fourth International Congress of Ophthalmology in London in 1872 and the Seventh Congress in Heidelburg in 1888. He presided over the Sixth
Bibliograp
hy
Bowman, W.: In memoriam, Franciscus C. Donders. Proc. R. Soc. 49:7, 1891. Donders, F. c.: On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye. With a preliminary essay on Physiological Dioptics. Translated by Moore, W. D. London, The New Sydenham Society, 1864. Fisher, F. P., and Ten Doesschate, G.: Franciscus Cornelis Donders. Assen, Van Gorcum & Co., 1958. Hirschberg, J.: Geschicte der Augenheilkunde. IX Frans Comelis Donders (1818-1889) 174, Handbuch der Gesamten Augenh. Berlin, Springer, 1918. Hutchinson, J.: The New Sydenham Society. Retrospective memoranda. London, H. K. Lewis, 1911. Lebenson, J. E.: Donders and astigmatism. Am. J. Ophthalmol. 49:1053, 1960. Mitchell, S. W.: Headache from eye strain. Am. J. Med. Sci. 22:321, 1876. Nuel, J. P.: F. C. Donders et son Oeuvre. Ann. Oculist. 91:5, 1889. Obituary. Franz Cornelis Donders. Br. Med. J. 1:746,1889. Pfeiffer, R. L.: Frans Comelis Donders. Dutch physiologist and ophthalmologist. Bull N.Y. Acad. Med. 12:566, 1936. Williams, H. D.: Franciscus Cornelius (sic) Donders. Proc. Am. Acad. Arts Sci. 24:464, 1888-1889.