Frans Cornelis Donders, 1818-1889.

Date:: 1891

Credit: Frans Cornelis Donders, 1818-1889. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$those days ” (he proceeds) “ —I may here tell what I have kept secret till now—I was invited by the medical faculty of Bonn to be the successor of Helmholtz [as professor of physiology]. It was the unanimous wish of all the members of the faculty, including Helm¬ holtz himself, then about to leave Bonn. The offer might have been tempting. With a gift of 40,000 florins in my hand, for a purpose marked out by myself, it could not be thought of. The Ophthalmic Hospital thus founded was to be an institution for patients, but also for investigation and research in Ophthalmology in its widest range, in connexion with the University, by which both science and practice might be advanced ; and not only did our students share its ad¬ vantages, but foreign fellow practitioners made their appearance to witness our proceedings and to participate in our enquiries.” These last had reference to a variety of problems presented in the course of the practical work which Donders now entered upon, but chiefly to the “ Refraction and Accommodation Anomalies,” which were found to be greatly more common than had been supposed, and to admit in large measure of exact definition and correction. In 1858, there appeared the first of a long series of essays, in which, during six years, he was able to propound a complete doctrine, com¬ plete as it left his hands, both as to theory and practice, of the employment and prescription of corrective glasses, a subject never really mastered till then, and yet of the widest importance in every¬ day life, for the young, the middle-aged, and the old of all classes, and for all future time. His results, elaborated down to their minutest details, were then arranged and collected into a volume, which it was his wish to offer to the world first, in its entirety, in an English form, as a reminiscence perchance of the welcome he had experienced here in 1851. This volume, as translated from the Dutch MS. by Dr. Moore, of Dublin, and revised by himself, was accordingly published by the “ Hew Sydenham Society ” in 1864, and dedicated to an English friend.* It was soon out of print, passed into several languages, and must remain the permanent classic, both as to theory and practice, on the topics embraced by it. To attempt an analysis of it would be beyond the scope of the present notice. It constitutes the title on which its author takes rank above all his contemporaries as the main founder of a very large province of modern Ophthalmology. But it must not be supposed that these results, memorable as they were, stood alone among the achievements of Donders in those fertile * ‘ On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye, with a pre¬ liminary Essay on Physiological Dioptrics.’ By F. C. Donders, M.D., Professor of Physiology and Ophthalmology in the University of Utrecht. Translated from the author’s MS. by Wm. Daniel Moore, M.D., Dublin. The New Sydenham Society, London, 1864.$

Frans Cornelis Donders, 1818-1889.

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