In commemoration of 25 years of Survey of Ophthalmology

SURVEY OF OPHTHALMOLOGY

VOLUME 25

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NUMBER 6

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MAY-JUNE

1981

SPECIAL SECTION

In Commemoration Survey

of 25 Years

of

of Ophthalmology

FRANK W. NRWRLL, M.D., FREDERICK C. RLODI, AND BERNARD SCHWARTZ, M.D., Ph.D.

M.D.,

PAUL

HENKIND,

M.D.,

Ph.D.,

With this issue, the Survey of Ophthalmology completes its 25th year of publication, and in this special section, the editors of several major ophthalmic journals have contributed their thoughts in commemoration of this milestone. Dr. Frank Newell, editor of American Journal of Ophthalmology and founding editor of the Survey, reflects on the Survey’s somewhat inauspicious beginnings. Dr. Fred Blodi, editor of Archives of Ophthalmology, considers the state of the ophthalmic literature. Dr. Paul Henkind, editor of Ophthalmology, presents his personal views on the development of the profession during his 25 years as an ophthalmologist. My own contribution to the section began with the question, “What has been the most significant change in ophthalmology over the past 25 years.3” The answer, of course, is technology. BERNARDSCHWARTZ,M.D., PH.D. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

The Beginning of the SURVEY As the founding editor of the Survey of Ophthalmology, it gives me great pleasure to see the Survey celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary and to find that it has assumed the place I’d hoped it would when I undertook editing it in 1955. The original idea was that of F. Herbert Haessler, M.D., a scholarly man deeply immersed in his profession, music, literature,

and languages. He was at that time the editor of the abstract department of the American Journal of Ophthalmology and carefully followed the world literature in the field. When an untimely illness prevented him from assuming editorship of a new journal, Dick Hoover, Editor at Williams & Wilkins, broached the idea to me in Atlantic City. We discussed it in detail in Chicago and then met 397