SECTION J OPHTHALMOLOGY 



(Hall 7, September 24, 10 a. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: DR. GEORGE C. HARLAN, Philadelphia, Pa. 

 SPEAKERS: DR. EDWARD JACKSON, Denver, Col. 



DR. GEORGE M. GOULD, Philadelphia, Pa. 

 SECRETARY: DR. WM. M. SWEET, Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Pa. 



THE RELATIONS OF OPHTHALMOLOGY TO OTHER 

 DEPARTMENTS OF SCIENCE 



BY EDWARD JACKSON 



[Edward Jackson, Professor of Ophthalmology in the University of Colorado, 

 editor of Ophthalmic Year-Book. b. March 30, 1856, Chester County, Pennsyl- 

 vania. C.E. Union College, New York; A.M. ibid. ; M.D. University of Penn- 

 sylvania; Professor of Diseases of the Eye, Philadelphia Polyclinic, 1888-98; 

 Surgeon to Wills Eye Hospital, Philadelphia, 1890-98; Ophthalmologist, Denver 

 County Hospital, since 1900. Member of the American Medical Association ; 

 American Ophthalmological Society; American Academy of Medicine; and many 

 others. Author of Manual of Diseases of the Eye; Skiascopy; Essentials of Dis- 

 eases of the Eye ; (on editorial staff) Ophthalmic Review, London, England; Oph- 

 thalmic Record, Chicago; American Journal of Medical Sciences, Philadelphia.] 



THAT ophthalmology has been given a place in this Congress of Arts 

 and Science may be significant of its wonderful development in the 

 last half-century. But it is still more significant of the new conception 

 of what constitutes a science. There was a conception of sciences that 

 we might compare with the representation of states in a primary 

 geography. Each had a distinct color pink for Missouri, yellow 

 for Illinois, green for Kansas, with strong black lines separating them. 

 If the color of one passed the black line and smeared the other, it was 

 a grave blemish on the map. Receiving first geographic impressions 

 from such a map, it becomes hard for the child to conceive that these 

 arbitrary political divisions correspond to nothing in external nature. 

 Lines equally distinct, equally arbitrary, equally unnatural, marked 

 off from each other the different conventional divisions of science. 

 To a generation trained in the older conception of separated sciences, 

 astronomy, chemistry, botany, physiology, the failure to recognize 

 the traditional boundaries may seem a loose disregard of valuable 

 landmarks. 



But in thought, as in geography, across all conventional lines the 

 streams run, the winds blow, the landscape extends toward the 

 infinite, alluring horizon. Each individual student, from the little 

 hill or the mountain he has climbed, looks out upon a panorama of 



