Glossary of terms used in orthoptic practice in the United Kingdom

Historical Significance: Orthoptics is the provision of eye exercises to restore normal binocular vision, was a new ophthalmic endeavour in the early years of the 20th century. French ophthalmologist, Emile Javal (1839-1907), is usually credited with being the first to treat strabismus with eye exercises. He did his doctoral thesis on the subject in 1868 and published Manuel du strabisme in 1896. London ophthalmologist Claud Worth (1869-1936) wrote a textbook on strabismus in 1903 and devised the Worth Amblyoscope, the forerunner of the synoptophore. However, orthoptics did not begin to flourish until the 1930s. The practice of orthoptics became well established in London as an adjunct of ophthalmology in the 1930s and ophthalmological assistants, known as orthoptists, were trained to assess binocular disorders and deliver the eye exercises. Ernest Maddox's daughter, Mary Maddox (1897-1972), was the first orthoptist. She was taught 'the treatment of squint by remedial exercises' by her father and set up her own practice in London in 1928 and started the first hospital orthoptic clinic at Moorfields Eye hospital the following year. She was joined by Miss Sylvia Jackson a few years later. She would co-author Practical orthoptics in the treatment of squint with ophthalmologist T Keith Lyle, first published in 1937 and which became a much respected textbook for the next 30 years. Formal training of orthoptists began in England in 1939.