Ocular signs in slit lamp microscopy

Historical Significance: Reprint of a book first published in 1948 devoted solely to the then emerging technique of ocular biomicroscopy. It was used as a text in the optometry course in the 1950s but since the College did not have a useable slit lamp at the time and optometrists did not use slit lamps, instruction in the subject was ineffective at the time. David Cockburn was probably the first Australian optometrist to have and use a slit lamp in clinical practice in the 1950s. (Search this catalogue for Cockburn), Dr. James Hamilton Doggart (1900 1989) was a leading British ophthalmologist, lecturer and writer. He wrote a book on childhood eye diseases in 1947 and then three other books including this one. He worked at Moorfields, St George's and Great Ormond Street hospitals and was an editor of Brit J Opthalmol. He has 32 publications listed on PubMed from 1949 to 1960. He campaigned to outlaw boxing because of the risk of eye injury. He was also a keen cricketer playing one first class match in 1919 as a bowler. This book is an early one on slit lamp biomicroscopy but not the first. See Koby 1925 Cat No 274 and Berliner 1943 Cat No 1772 for earlier books on this subject. Slit lamps date back to 1911 when Alvar Gullstrand developed a rudimentary slit lamp. Oblique focal illumination had been advocated earlier by Himly (1772 - 1837) and by William MacKenzie in 1806. Helmholtz in the mid 19th C used the technique for his investigations of accommodation and von Graefe used it clinically in 1854. Aubert presented a binocular corneal microscope in 1891. However it was Gullstrand in 1911 who showed that a focussed oblique beam of light was the most revealing. The Museum hold a first edition 1948 which is in the Aitken collection and another copy of the reprint, as well as other books by Doggart.