Table 6.
Cataract surgery and oculists in New York and New Jersey.
| Years | Surgeon: region |
|---|---|
| 1754 | Margaret Powell: Treated cataract (likely nonsurgical)128 |
| 1762–1773 | John Levine: “Oculist . . . Cures all Disorders in the Eyes.” 1762-1767.154–156 From Ireland. Had lived in England157 |
| 1768 | Couching instruments: William Shipman, 1768.158 Joel and Jotham Post. “Surgeons’ instruments for . . . couching.” 1794159 |
| 1773 | James Jay: Rye, New York |
| 1783 | Richard Bayley: Extraction |
| 1784 | Charles McKnight (1750-1791): “Died . . . as a surgeon and oculist, perhaps unequalled in this country.”160 (Date began eye surgeries estimated) |
| 1788 | Charles Crooke (1764–1788): Poughkeepsie.161 Estate sale: “Surgeon’s Instruments . . . Couching”162 |
| 1792 | “. . . an operation, . . . performed by Doctor William Stillwell, surgeon, . . . upon an eye, that had been blind for three years past . . . he now sees the distance of 20 or 30 rods . . .”163 Middletown, New Jersey |
| 1793 | Aphakic spectacles. “James Rivington has . . . for the accommodation of persons, with couched & weak eyes . . . spectacles.”164 1793-1794.165 Joel Benson. . . Optician. . . spectacles for cataract eyes. 1798166 |
All practitioners in New York City unless another location specified.