The 1973 - postgraduate courses in ophthalmology held under the auspices of the Netherlands Ophthalmological Society, mark the 25th anniversary of the rebuilt Rotterdam Eye Clinic. The themes set for these courses: 'Ophthalmic Photography', 'Electro ophthalmology' and 'Echo-ophthalmology', have been chosen from a multitude of rapid developments in ophthalmology during this period. The aim was to provide the clinician with a lead in a bewildering field of apparatus and techniques and to help him in selecting methods that provide useful results without too much specialised knowledge. However, sophisticated techniques and discussion of results have been added now and then, so that the more advanced reader still finds sufficiently inter esting material in this report. This holds e.g. for the section on fluorescence-angiography which section has been extended on the base of the probability that the clinician in general practice too, has been or will be confronted with this rapidly expanding and fascinating field. The reason to bring together two methods of objective examination of visual functions i.e. electro-ophthalmology and echo-ophthalmology, is clearly due to the intimate connection between the two. In many ways these methods complement each other in providing the final diagnosis. This report does not intend to replace text books, nor to outdate treatises on superspecialised ophthalmic subjects; it simply tends to provide the clinician with a basic information on selected techniques, stimulating the reader to start using them in daily practice."

This volume contains articles on the history of ophthalmology.

Divided into five sections, this book considers the history of ideas in ophthalmology and visual sciences; biographies of researchers in ophthalmology; the history of academic institutions involved in ophthalmology; ophthalmology in antiquity; and oral history in ophthalmology.

This work is part of the Documenta Ophthalmologica series and is divided into three parts: biographies of famous personalities; the history of ideas in ophthalmology and visual sciences; ophthalmology in art and literature.

When the eyeball is indented in total darkness, within less than 200 mil liseconds an oval or quarter-moon shaped spot of light is perceived in the part of the visual field corresponding to the indented region of the retina. In the seconds following, this phosphene extends across the whole visual field and alters in structure during further eyeball indentation. It is then seen as irregular large bright spots of light, finely structured moving light grains ('light nebula') and stationary bright stars. Regular geometrical patterns appear only when both eyes are indented simultaneously 1]. When the eyeball deformation is released, part of the retina again lights up for another one or two seconds and curved light lines are seen following the course of the larger retinal vessels (Fig. 1). In the following we will review the history of this phenomenon, which played an important role during the first 2200 years of vision theories and in the development of models to explain normal vision. 2. Pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato and Aristotle Alcmaeon of Croton (6-5th century B. C. ), who was a member of the Pythagoraean sect and one of the founders of Greek medicine, was the first to describe mechanical deformation of the eyeball leading to light sensa tions. According to Aristotle's pupil Theophrast of Eresos, Alcmaeon report ed that 'the eye obviously has fire within, for when the eye is struckfireflashes out' 2, p. 88]."