Catalogue Number: 2442 Visual optics Category: Book Sub-Category: Significant book (Aitken collection) Author: EMSLEY Harold Heaton Year Of Publication/Manufacture: 1936 Edition: 1st Edition Time Period: 1900 to 1939 Place Of Publication/Manufacture: London Publisher/Manufacturer: Hatton Press Ltd Description Of Item: Original brown cloth, 220 x 140 mm, 618 pages and 8 unnumbered pages of advertisements, errata leaf, frontispiece of Helmholtz, Young and Donders, vi preliminaries, contents pages, numerous black and white illustrations, Historical Significance: This is the first edition of a book that was a very influential textbook for optometry students from 1936 until the early 1960s. It covers an outline of the eye and vision, visual acuity, refractive errors, accommodation and convergence, ophthalmoscopy, retinoscopy, keratometry, 5 chapters on binocular vision and two last chapters, one on the schematic eye and the other on aberrations of the eye. Emsley was Head of the Applied Optics Department in the Northhampton Polytechnic within which an optometry course was taught, although the Polytechnic has now become City University and the Department is the Department of Optometry and Visual Science. Emsley held a BSc degree so the book tends to be quantitative although there is no hard maths. Editions held by the Kett Museum are: 1st 1936 Cat No 1083, 2nd 1939 Cat No 564, 3rd 1944 Cat No 1944, 4th 1950 Cat No 100, 5th 1955 Cat No 566. How Acquired: Purchased by Kett Museum Date Acquired: Feb 2010 Condition: Good, Small blemish on spine. Breaking joint Location: Nathan Library. Aitken collection |