Library Notes

In preparation for an exhibit highlighting the Library's treasures in optics and ophthalmology, I have selected Casey A. Wood as the starting point. Wood was born in Wellington, Ontario in 1856. He began his medical study with his father, continued at the University of Bishop's College medical department and after examination became a member of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario and Quebec in 1877.

In 1886 he began study to specialize in ophthalmology and otology at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary, followed by two years of study in Berlin, Paris, Vienna and London. He settled in Chicago in 1889 and began a successful practice, with hospital appointments at Cook County, Alexian Brothers', Passavant, St. Luke's and the Post-Graduate Medical School, as well an academic appointment at the latter and at the College of Physicians and Surgeons (University of Illinois). Later, he became Professor of Ophthalmology at Northwestern University, Chicago.

Illustration from the "Cairo" Tadhkirat manuscript attempting to explain the effect of certain ocular conditions on vision
Photo: Jim Brucker

With many books and book chapters to his credit, he was a distinguished writer and editor-in-chief of the Annals of Ophthalmology and editorially connected to the Chicago Medical Standard, Clinical Review and the Archives of Ophthalmology, among others. He also had a passion for collecting books and literary material. The bulk of his personal collection was donated to McGill University; however, Northwestern is the steward of many gifts from Dr. Wood, including his manuscript for Memorandum book of a tenth-century oculist for the use of modern ophthalmologist: a translation of the Tadhkirat of Ali ibn Isa of Baghdad (Chicago: Northwestern University, 1936).

The Tadhkirat was for many centuries the leading authority on the subject of ophthalmology, describing 130 eye diseases, including several forms of trachoma and ophthalmia. Wood’s translation is based on a 17th century manuscript commentary bought for Casey Wood by his friend, the eminent ophthalmologist and translator Max Meyerhof, which Dr. Wood included with his many gifts to Northwestern.

Ola ophthalmic Rx manuscript, written on palm leaves, secured by painted wooden boards
Photo: Jim Brucker

Other gifts from Dr. Wood included a small collection of olas (Sinhalese book-manuscripts) in Sanskrit, Pali, and Sinhalese, dealing with many medical topics. The featured item has prescriptions for eye ailments.

Illustration from Margarita philosophica, with one of the oldest schematic representations of the eye in a printed book
Photo: Jim Brucker

Other treasures to be displayed in our upcoming exhibit will include one of the first drawings of the eye in a Western printed volume, Margarita philosophica by Gregor Reisch (1504); John Peckham's Perspectiva communis (1504), a sixteenth century edition, with a thirteenth century treatise on optics, which was the generally accepted medieval handbook on the subject, and was used in the universities until Kepler's day; George Bartisch Ophthalmodouleia (1583), the first systematic work on ocular disease and ophthalmic surgery; Helkiah Crooke's Mikrokosmographia (1615), an English anatomy text; and eye surgery from Institutiones chirurgicae of Lorenz Heister (1740).