Time OPH

SURVEY OF OPHTHALMOLOGY

VOLUME

42

l

NUMBER

3

l

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER

1997

ELSEWER

TIME OPH ,

BENJAMIN

MILDER, EDITOR

Of course, we learn from newspapers and TV ads that the “one stitch” has now been replaced by the “no stitch,” which guarantees that you can be playing tennis within 24 hours post-op-even if you are 91 years old and have never played tennis before. Nonetheless, we feel that it is proper that John McLean’s stitch be inscribed in the historic annals of Time Oph.

(Editor’s note) “And there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). However you phrase it, it is inescapable that we are all destined to repeat what has gone before, and we congratulate ourselves on learning from the past. From time to time, however, the past somehow falls between the cracks and we forget those contributions we are resurrecting. So it seemsthat John McLean used the “one-stitch” cataract wound closure a half-century ago.’

Oh, John

McLean Is Likely Over in Hi Grave

Turning

When you had the itch For that new “one-stitch”Until lately, all-consuming, Could that same stitch which Made your fingers twitch Have been a stitch they were exhuming? When you itched to switch To that “new” one-stitchWhich, today, is obsolescentThere wasjust one hitch: Was the “one-stitch” kitsch, Or just an old stitch recrudescent? Though some struck it rich With their “one-stitch” pitch --It was the “New Stitch of the Future!‘There’s one little glitch: It had carved its niche As John McLean’s old mattress suture. MILDER, MD LOUIS, MO, USA

BEN ST.

References 1. McLean J: A new 23:554-559,194o

cornea-scleral

suture.

Arch

Ophthalmol

296 0 1997 by Elsevier All rights reserved.

Science

Inc.

0039-6257/97/$17.00 PII SOO39-6257(97)00031-3