Abstract
In summary we can say that the AOS was founded at a time when ophthalmology established itself as an independent scientific medical specialty. A hundred years earlier, in 1750, ophthalmology became an independent surgical specialty when Jacques Daviel of Marseille had begun extracting a cataract instead of merely couching or dislocating the lens. Now in the middle of the 19th century a new era dawned on the ophthalmic horizon. An era which Julius Hirschberg calls "the reform of ophthalmology." It was effected mainly by a group of unusual, gifted and genial scholars. Hermann v. Helmholtz, who not only invented the ophthalmoscope, but established with his handbook physiologic optics as an advanced, sophisticated branch of optics and mathematics; F.C. Donders, who put refraction, refractive errors and accommodation on a sound scientific footing, the great A. v. Graefe, who contributed so much to the concept and treatment of glaucoma, to strabismus, to various diseases of the fundus, to neuro-ophthalmology and to many other fields and finally William Bowman, the great investigator, clinician and surgeon. It was during this time of reform, of fermentation, of maturation, that a group of farsighted American ophthalmologists decided to establish a society to further the aims and objectives of our specialty in America. The time was right; the effort succeeded and our society developed into one of the decisive forces of American ophthalmology. I hope that my address has met the objectives which I had outlined earlier: To present and illuminate the circumstances and external conditions which were effective in 1864 when our society was founded. At the same time I hope I have done justice to the memory of this outstanding American ophthalmologist, Frederick Verhoeff, who contributed so much to the American Ophthalmological Society. On this the quasquicentennial jubilee of the AOS we find the Society healthy and flourishing. May it continue as an association of the most prominent and most promising American ophthalmologists who consider the practice of our specialty a scholarly profession and not a mercenary trade. I can only conclude with wishing the AOS a happy birthday, many successful returns, ad multos annos!
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