The eye in health and disease (with an account of the optometer for the adaptation of glasses for impaired, aged or defective sight)
 Catalogue Number: 1663 The eye in health and disease (with an account of the optometer for the adaptation of glasses for impaired, aged or defective sight) Category: Book Sub-Category: Significant book (Aitken collection) Author: SMEE Alfred Year Of Publication/Manufacture: 1854 Edition: 2nd Edition Time Period: 19th C Place Of Publication/Manufacture: London Publisher/Manufacturer: Longman and Co Description Of Item: Original embossed decorated green cloth covers, 99 pages, viii preliminaries, 4 plates and 48 figures in text. Name of an earlier owner P Thomas on front fly leaf. Two pages of advertisements for Horne, Thornwaite and Wood, Opticians of Newgate Street, London, for Smee's optometer, spectacles, opera glasses and stereocopes. Two pages listing Alfred Smee's other books. Historical Significance: There is much in this early ophthalmic text book of interest to optometrists. The first edition was published six years earlier in 1848. This second ediition has added information on binocular perspective. There are notes on eye disease and the selection of spectacles and Smee's optometer is described. Alfred Smee FRS (1818-1877) studied medicine in London but like others in the 18th and 19th C was a polymath. He wrote books and papers on metallurgy, electrobiology, horticulture, banknotes, printing, politics and the human mind, His daughter wrote a memoir shortly after his death 'Memoir of the late Alfred Smee' by EMO (Elizabeth Mary Oldling) London: George Bell and Sons 1879, a copy of the full text of which is held on the Kett Museum Computer. How Acquired: Donated by Duncan Waite, member of the College Date Acquired: Oct 2010 Condition: Fine except for mild foxing and spine sunned Location: Nathan Library. Aitken collection |