Library Notes

Scanning the Library's Special Collections holdings in optics, eye anatomy and eye diseases, I was amazed by the number of titles available in the Special Collections stacks. A new exhibit featuring a number of of these treasures is now on display in the second level show windows and in the Special Collections Reading Room. The examples chosen reflect the depth of the collection, ranging in scope from scientific treatises (Newton and Zinn) to medical quackery (Turner and Taylor).

Detail from Peckham's Perspectiva communis

One of the highlights of the exhibit is an exquisite copy of John Peckham's Perspectiva communis. Peckham (ca. 1230-1292) took his degrees at Paris and Oxford and in 1279 was elected archbishop of Canterbury. The first printed edition of his text Perspectiva communis was published in 1482. Peckham's text was the standard university textbook in optics and vision for its time. The Galter copy was published in Venice in 1504. Between 1482 and 1665, the text went through twelve printed editions, including a translation into Italian. It was used and cited by many medieval and Renaissance natural philosophers, including Lorenzo Ghiberti, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Kepler.

The text is divided into three parts: properties of light, reflection and refraction. The Library's edition contains remarkable woodcut illustrations; among those, a diagram of the eye, considered by some to be the earliest to appear in print. Note also the image in the Galter copy of Margarita philosophica, located in the Reading Room flat cases, which was published a mere 22 years after the first Peckham edition.

The Islamic tradition in ophthalmology is represented by Benevenutus of Jerusalem (12th century) in a translation by Dr. Casey Wood of an early printed version from Ferrara dated 1474, De oculis eorumque egritudinibus et curis, with facsimile pages.


Figure from Descartes' De homine		Figure from Newton's Opticks: or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections, and colours of light

The great philosopher scientists Decartes and Newton are represented by De homine (1664) and Opticks: or, A treatise of the reflections, refractions, inflections, and colours of light (1721), respectively.

Image from Kennedy's Ophthalmographia; or A treatise of the eye

A very rare item, Peter Kennedy's Ophthalmographia; or A treatise of the eye (1713) is one of the few books published in English which documents what the enlightened eighteenth-century surgeon knew about the eye.

George Berkeley's An essay towards a new theory of vision (1709) was acclaimed by Adam Smith as "one of the finest examples of philosophical analysis that is to be found, either in our own, or in any other language." Saggio di osservazioni e d'esperienze sulle principali malattie degli occhi [Treatise on the principal diseases of the eyes] (1802) of Antonio Scarpa is a classic work on ophthalmology which remained the standard text for several decades, going through several editions and translations establishing Scarpa's reputation as a leading ophthalmologist. The text is especially notable for its copperplate engravings of the anatomy of the eye. Thomas Young 's essay "On the theory of light and colours" published in the Philosophical Transactions (1802) states that color sensitivity in the human eye can be traced to the three primary colors, red, green, and violet, which are perceived by the retina on three corresponding sensitive kinds of fibers. This theory was elaborated by the German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz into the Young-Helmholtz Theory of Color Sensitivity.

The essay "Contributions to the physiology of vision," Philosophical transactions (1838) by Charles Wheatstone presents a theory of binocular vision. The essay includes a description of the stereoscope, invented by Wheatstone. A stereoscope, credited as the first "AV" apparatus, with viewing cards accompanies the exhibit for a hands-on finale in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Hours for the portion of the exhibit in the Reading Room are 9 AM-4:30 PM, Monday through Friday; the show windows are on display during regular Library hours.

A newsletter for patrons of the Galter Health Sciences Library

Summer 2005 New Series #37

On the Eye: Optic, Ophthalmic and Oculist Treasures from Special Collections

Ron Sims, MA, Special Collections Librarian, rnsms@northwestern.edu

Summer 2005

New Series #37