Catalogue Number: 1821 Ocular signs in slit lamp microscopy Category: Book Sub-Category: Significant book (Aitken collection) Author: DOGGART James H Year Of Publication/Manufacture: 1949 Edition: 1st edition Time Period: 1940 to 1999 Place Of Publication/Manufacture: St Louis, USA Publisher/Manufacturer: The CV Mosby Company Description Of Item: Original brown cloth covers, xiii preliminaries, 112 pages, 93 illustrations (85 in colour) Historical Significance: One of the earlies texts devoted solely to the then emerging technique of ocular bio-microscopy. It was used as a text in the optometry course in the 1950s but since the College did not have a usable 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. How Acquired: Purchased by Kett Museum Date Acquired: April 2011 Condition: Fine Location: Nathan Library. Aitken collection |