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C. Richard Keeler

Arch Ophthalmol. 2002;120:194-201.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

INTRODUCTION

"In the whole history of medicine there is no more beautiful episode than the invention of the ophthalmoscope, and physiology has few greater triumphs." Thus wrote American ophthalmologist Edward Loring¹ in the opening paragraph of his Textbook of Ophthalmology in 1892, 2 years before the death of Hermann von Helmholtz.

On the 150th anniversary of the invention or "discovery" of the ophthalmoscope (Figure 1) by Helmholtz, we have an opportunity, once again, to laud this outstanding physicist of the 19th century, just as his peers did on the 10th, 50th, and centennial years of this greatest of ophthalmological inventions.

Figure appears in full text version. Figure 1. Early model of the Helmholtz ophthalmoscope, 1851.

Prior to his invention, ophthalmologists could not view the posterior section of the eye and struggled to explain certain classes of eye disease in which there was a dimness or loss of vision. Suddenly in 1851, the . . . [Full Text of this Article]

SOURCES OF ILLUMINATION

METHODS OF REFLECTING LIGHT

METHODS OF CORRECTION

From the Royal College of Ophthalmologists Museum and Library, London, England.

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