The muscles of the eye

Historical Significance: This book is rated among the 100 most important books in ophthalmology by H. Stanley Thompson M.D. & Donald L. Blanchard M.D. http://webeye.ophth.uiowa.edu/dept/20thcenturybooks/100Books. Dr Howe (1848-1928) was a prominent American ophthalmologist. He was educated at Harvard, Edinburgh and in Germany. In 1884, at age 36 he wrote to the American Journal of Ophthalmology from Heidelberg about the demonstration he had just witnessed of the use of a cocaine solution as a local anesthetic. At 40 he agitated for control of ophthalmia neonatorum by placing prophylactic drops in the eyes of every newborn, and was instrumental in getting 'The Howe Bill' through the New York legislature in 1890. At 60 he published his magnum opus - an influential 2 volume text on ocular motility that was 900 pages long, with 2000 references and 356 in-text figures and various appendices and indices. It was clearly the most thorough book on the subject in English, and it was much admired and was dubbed 'a classic' even before the second volume was available. He lived another 20 years and did some important philanthropy. See Charles F. F. Campbell Prevention of Infantile Blindness Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 37, No. 2, The Public Health Movement. (Mar., 1911), pp. 273-287 for the story of ophthalmia neonatorum and Dr Howe's role