Ophthalmodouleia

Georg Bartisch c.(1535-1606) was not a physician himself but he was an apprentice to an oculist, a surgeon and a lithotomist and in the custom of the day, he became a travelling surgeon.

Treating eye patients in marketplaces with a combination of scientific knowledge and folkloric remedies (the caption for the first image above is 'witchcraft' - captions are in the image URLs) Bartisch established a good reputation and was eventually appointed oculist to the Saxony Duke, Augustus I.

The special knowledge he gained was recorded in his magnum opus, Oφθαλμοδουλεια [Ophthalmodouleia or Eye-Service] for which Bartisch sketched all the illustrations. The 91 fullpage woodcuts by Hans Hewamaul became 107 illustrations with the inclusion of 2 paper-flap anatomical atlases.

Despite containing some level of superstition, Ophthalmodouleia was a landmark publication, establishing opthalmology as a true specialty with the systematic presentation of anatomy, disease and surgery. It was published in 1583 - paid for by Bartisch - in a German vernacular so that the common people would be able to read it.

It is somewhat ironic that the first comprehensive treatise on eyes has been poorly digitized with only low resolution visual images available on the internet.

It was translated into english and re-released in 1996, with all the illustrations intact, as part of a History of Opthalmology series by Julius Hirschberg [click on 'index' for each category - gives a rough outline of the history of medicine relating to the eye - there 's a picture here from the Nuremburg Chronicle of 1493: the first ever depiction of spectacles, just by the by].

• All illustrations from Ophthalmodouleia Das ist Augendienst are online at Duke University Medical Center Library {put 'Ophthalmodouleia' into the search field for thumbnail views}
• This french SNOF opthalmology site has a number of slightly larger and less gaudy versions of the illustrations (the 2 masked figures above come from here)
• These three exhibition pages are also at Duke University with displays of some of the images, which were handcoloured later after the first edition was released.
  
• The College for Optometrists in the UK have a one page display showing how the images appeared at the time of publication, together with the 1996 illustration equivalents.
• The History of Opthalmology website description of the background to Ophthalmodouleia and the newer publication.
• Eye resources on the internet.