72 MICROSCOPY OF THE LIVING EYE 



an active interest in the subject : in the United States of America, 

 Bedell, of Albany, devoted much attention to it and, with von der 

 Heydt of Chicago who translated Vogt's Atlas, was mainly 

 responsible for introducing the subject into that country ; in 

 England, the work of Harrison Butler, of Birmingham, stimulated 

 the interest of ophthalmologists in the subject ; in Belgium, 

 Gallemaerts ; etc. 



Although nowadays there are various makes of slit-lamp 

 apparatus for the clinical examination of the eye, up to com- 

 paratively recently the one in general use has always been that 

 of Zeiss, and it is interesting to note how an apparently small 

 omission, viz., to equip all the instruments with the improved 

 achromatic focusing lens, was much responsible for the rather 

 retarded adoption of the apparatus in the countries to which it 

 was exported. I cannot speak for other countries than England 

 and the U.S.A., but as late as the end of 1923, in England, the 

 Zeiss slit-lamp was being sujDplied fitted only with the old Gull- 

 strand focusing-lens which was not achromatic, and in the case 

 of the U.S.A. this applied up to 1925. Another commercial error 

 as regards the countries to which it was exported was the supplying 

 of the slit-lamp so made that it could be combined for use 

 alternatively with the simplified Gullstrand ophthalmoscope, the 

 resulting slit-lamp being quite unsuitable for proper slit-lamp 

 microscopy of the eye : the temptation to secure two pieces 

 of apparatus in one led many or most to buy what was 

 unsuitable. 



The term " Biomicroscopy " has appropriately been pro- 

 posed (13) by Dr. Edward Jackson, though it may be suggested 

 that the use of the term microscopy was, perhaps, partly respon- 

 sible in early years for opinions that existed adverse to the alleged 

 clinical usefulness of the apparatus. It was not sufficiently 

 appreciated, and sometimes is not now, that the pictorial effects 

 are more anatomical than histological — at any rate, where examina- 

 tion of the living eye is concerned — one of the great advantages 

 being that the slit-lamp has brought to light the usefulness of the 

 Czapski binocular microscope. This instrument, little used 

 hitherto, had existed in almost its present form for many years 



