Chapter I: Preface

Great traditions are the most valuable assets which a hospital or a teaching establishment can possess. They give it a personality which makes it beloved and respected. Traditions are made up of the energies and enterprise of those who have gone before, and will live on from generation to generation long after the bones of those who have created them have crumbled into dust. The primary aim of this book is to put on record the traditions of the Moorfields Eye Hospital for the benefit of past, present, and future workers within its walls.

So intimately associated has this Hospital been with all the discoveries and developments which have taken place in connection with ophthalmology during the nineteenth century, that it was not possible to write a history of the first hundred years of its existence without giving an account of them also. By having done this, it is hoped that the book may find a wider circle of readers than those for whom it was in the first instance intended.

An endeavour has been made to give an account of events as they have happened in chronological order, and by so doing to produce the effect of a cinematograph film, rather than that of an album of photographs.

For the facts recorded, numerous different sources have been tapped. Much information as to the commencement of the Institution has been derived from Barnsby Cooper’s biography of his uncle, Sir Astley Cooper. Great use has been made of the minute books of the Committee of Management of the Hospital, and of its annual reports.

For biographical details, the _Dictionary of National Biography_ has been consulted, and also the articles on the “British Masters of Ophthalmology” which have been published in the _British Journal of Ophthalmology_.

It has been said that “when a medical man begins to write on the history of his subject it is a sure sign of senility.” The writer of these traditions does not claim that his case is any exception to this rule. In early life a man has to learn history. In middle life he is engaged in making history; and it is in his later years that he becomes best qualified to write history. It is then that, on looking back, he obtains the most comprehensive view, and is able to regard objects in their truest perspective.

In conclusion I have to thank the Committee of Management of the Hospital for its permission to reproduce the portraits of several former members of the surgical staff, which hang in its Board Room; also the _British Journal of Ophthalmology_ for permission to use the blocks of some of the illustrations which have been published in its pages; and lastly my friend Mr. Frank Juler for kindly reading through and correcting the proof-sheets.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE FOUNDERS AND FOUNDATION 1

II. THE WORK OF JOHN CUNNINGHAM SAUNDERS 17

III. BENJAMIN TRAVERS AND SIR WILLIAM LAWRENCE 33

IV. REMOVAL TO MOORFIELDS 48

V. THE ROYAL LONDON OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL 67

VI. THE INTRODUCTION OF INHALATION ANÆSTHESIA
AND OPHTHALMIC SURGERY 82

VII. THE DISCOVERY OF THE OPHTHALMOSCOPE 99

VIII. THE COMMENCEMENT OF “THE OPHTHALMIC
HOSPITAL REPORTS” 119

IX. GROWTH AND EXTENSION 132

X. ANTISEPTICS, BACTERIOLOGY, AND LOCAL ANÆSTHESIA 152

XI. THE SELECTION OF A NEW SITE, AND THE ERECTION
OF THE NEW HOSPITAL 168

XII. THE HOSPITAL IN THE CITY ROAD 190

LIST OF PLATES

PLATE FACING PAGE

I. JOHN CUNNINGHAM SAUNDERS _Frontispiece_

II. SHOWING THE SOUTH SIDE OF CHARTERHOUSE
SQUARE AND NO. 40 WHERE THE LONDON DISPENSARY
FOR CURING DISEASES OF THE EYE AND EAR
WAS FIRST OPENED IN 1805 14

III. SIR ASTLEY PASTON COOPER, BART., F.R.S. 34

IV. BENJAMIN TRAVERS, F.R.S. 38

V. SIR WILLIAM LAWRENCE, BART., F.R.S. 44

VI. THE LONDON OPHTHALMIC INFIRMARY AS FIRST
ERECTED AT MOORFIELDS IN 1822 52

VII. FREDERICK TYRRELL 62

VIII. JOHN SCOTT 65

IX. DR. JOHN RICHARD FARRE 73

X. JOHN DALRYMPLE, F.R.S. 78

XI. GEORGE CRITCHETT 86

XII. SIR WILLIAM BOWMAN, BART., F.R.S. 94

XIII. WILLIAM CUMMING 102

XIV. JAMES DIXON 105
JOHN CAWOOD WORDSWORTH 105

XV. JOHN WHITAKER HULKE 111
GEORGE LAWSON 111

XVI. SIR JONATHAN HUTCHINSON, F.R.S. 123

XVII. EDWARD NETTLESHIP, F.R.S. 140

XVIII. THE HOSPITAL AT MOORFIELDS AFTER THE ADDITION
OF A NEW WING IN 1868, AND A NEW STOREY
IN 1875 143

XIX. WAREN TAY 151

XX. JOHN COUPER 157

XXI. R. MARCUS GUNN 160

XXII. JAMES E. ADAMS 163

XXIII. A. QUARRY SILCOCK 167

XXIV. THE PLEASURE BATH, PEERLESS POOL, CITY ROAD 175

XXV. THE ROYAL LONDON OPHTHALMIC HOSPITAL IN
THE CITY ROAD, OPENED IN 1899 190

XXVI. SIR JOHN TWEEDY, LL.D. 202

XXVII. WILLIAM LANG 204

THE HISTORY AND TRADITIONS OF THE MOORFIELDS EYE HOSPITAL