Eyes in the storm. President Hopkins's dilemma: The Dartmouth Eye Institute

Historical Significance: The Dartmouth Eye Institute was briefly, from 1935 to 1947, an important centre for research in physiological optics, especially binocular vision, stereopsis and aniseikonia. It was where Kenneth Ogle and Adelbert Ames did their most important work. It also had a eye clinic led by ophthalmologists who were later to become prominent. It had its origins when Adelbert Ames (1880-1955), a researcher at Dartmouth College. Massachusetts, began recruiting staff of what was to become the Institute. From Eastman Kodak Company he recruited lens designer Gordon H. Gliddon. More staff joined the department over the years, including Kenneth N. Ogle, with whom Ames worked on stereopsis and binocular vision. Ames was an unusual scholar. He had studied law at Harvard but was more interested in painting and later physiological optics, which he studied at Clark University during World War 1. He was a foundation member of the Optical Society of America. He went to Dartmouth College in 1919. In 1935 the Department of Physiological Optics at Dartmouth College became the Dartmouth Eye Institute under the overall directorship of Alfred Bielschowsky, with Ames serving as its director of research. Ames garnered support for it from various sources including John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Rockefeller Foundation, and the American Optical Company. The institute at various times employed between thirty and forty staff, including researchers, and clinicians who examined patients' eyes and made eyeglasses. In 1940, Bielschowsky died unexpectedly. Hermann Burian, an ophthalmologist, worked briefly as acting director, and then was relieved by Walter Lancaster. He was not able to exert the influence he wanted, resigning in 1942. On 10 May 1947 the institute was closed. See book by Kenneth Ogle Cat No 597.