XVI 



those days " (he proceeds) " I may here tell what I have kept 

 secret till now I was invited by the medical faculty of Bonn to be 

 the successor of Helmholtz [as professor of physiology]. It was the 

 unanimous wish of all the members of the faculty, including Helm- 

 holtz himself, then about to leave Bonn. The offer might have been 

 tempting. With a gift of 40,000 florins in my hand, for a purpose 

 marked out by myself, it could not be thought of. The Ophthalmic 

 Hospital thus founded was to be an institution for patients, but also 

 for investigation and research in Ophthalmology in its widest range, 

 in connexion with the University, by which both science and practice 

 might be advanced ; and not only did our students share its ad- 

 vantages, but foreign fellow practitioners made their appearamv to 

 witness our proceedings and to participate in our enquiries." 



These last had reference to a variety of problems presented in the 

 course of the practical work which Donders now entered upon, but 

 chiefly to the " Refraction and Accommodation Anomalies," which 

 were found to be greatly more common than had been supposed, and 

 to admit in large measure of exact definition and correction. In 

 1858, there appeared the first of a long series of essays, in which, 

 during six years, he was able to propound a complete doctrine, com- 

 plete as it left his hands, both as to theory and practice, of the 

 employment and prescription of corrective glasses, a subject never 

 really mastered till then, and yet of the widest importance in every- 

 day life, for the young, the middle-aged, and the ofd of all classes, 

 and for all future time. His results, elaborated down to their 

 minutest details, were then arranged and collected into a volume, 

 which it was his wish to offer to the world first, in its entirety, in an 

 English form, as a reminiscence perchance of the welcome he had 

 experienced here in 1851. This volume, as translated from the 

 Dutch MS. by Dr. Moore, of Dublin, and revised by himself, was 

 accordingly published by the " New Sydenham Society " in 1864, and 

 dedicated to an English friend.* It was soon out of print, passed 

 into several languages, and must remain the permanent classic, both 

 as to theory and practice, on the topics embraced by it. To attempt 

 an analysis of it would be beyond the scope of the present notice. It 

 constitutes the title on which its author takes rank above all his 

 contemporaries as the main founder <5f a very large province of 

 modern Ophthalmology. 



But it must not be supposed that these results, memorable as they 

 were, stood alone among the achievements of Donders in those fertile 



* ' On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Kefraction of the Eye, with a pre- 

 liminary Essay on Physiological Dioptrics.' By F. C. Donders, M.D., Professor of 

 Physiology and Ophthalmology in the University of Utrecht. Translated from the 

 author's MS. by Wm. Daniel Moore, M.D., Dublin. The New Sydenham Society, 

 London, 1864. 



