Keeler ophthalmoscope adapted for providing pleoptic therapy

Historical Significance: This item is an adaptation of a Keeler ophthalmoscope for delivering pleoptic treatment of amblyopia, eccentric fixation and anomalous correspondence associated with strabismus. Pleoptics treatment was devised in 1947 by Alfred Bangeter (1909-2002), a Swiss ophthalmologist who was head of the Eye Department in St-Gallen from 1946 to 1983. He actively promoted his methods at conferences, in publications and through a School of Pleoptics and Orthoptics that he created. The method used bright light to desensitise the region of the retina used for eccentric fixation or anomalous correspondence and the stimulation of the true fovea with flashing lights. and other methods. Bangeter devised some 20 instruments for providing pleoptic treatment. His contemporary, Curt Cuppers, (1910-1995), a German ophthalmologist, was equally inventive in producing instruments, of which the Euthyscope was one (see Cat No 2881). This Keeler instrument works on the same principles as the Euthyscope. However, pleoptics did not hold to its initial promise and interest in it declined during the 1960s. See Priestley BS. Pleoptics instruments and methods. Int Opthal Clinics 1961; 1: 787-827 for a detailed account of pleoptic instruments. Keeler Ltd was founded by Charles D Keeler, and American born optical dispenser who set up business in London in 1917. It expanded into ophthalmic instrument making and wholesale spectacle making in 1933 to take advantage of Keeler's inventiveness. Over the years it has launched numerous versions of ophthalmoscopes starting with the Wide-Angle Ophthalmoscope in 1933.