Danish Ophthalmology 1900-09.
Highlights.
Mogens Norn.
At the turn of the previous century very much happened in Danish ophthalmology.
Inspired by the very first Nordic Congress the Danish ophthalmologic Society was established.
The first Nordic Congress (Nordisk Oftalmolog Møde) was held in Stockholm, Sweden, the last day in Uppsala. The Swede Alvar Gullstrand (1862- 1930) had the initiative, proposed at the meeting in Utrecht in 1899. But he was not im-pressed of the scientific program at this Nordic Congress. It was more simple than the international congresses at that time, he claimed in the German journal : Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde. The 9 scientific papers were mostly case stories. The total gathering with partners was good. The meeting was a great inspiration for future Nordic cooperation
The Danish ophthalmologic Society (at that time named Copenhagen ophthalmologic Society) was established with professor Jannik Bjerrum (1857-1920) as president, KKK Lundsgaard (1867-1931) as vice-president, after initiative from the young ophthalmologist Lundsgaard. He became later editor in chief for Acta Ophthalmologica. Professor Grut (1831-1907) refused to accept the presidency, pleading his age.
This meeting was held at Kongens Nytorv no. 6 in Copenhagen, next to the French Embassy in September 19., with 18 of the society’s 20 members, all from Copenhagen. Only one woman: Estrid Hein was among 19 men. The meeting was published in the Danish Hospitals Tidende (1,2).
The first official scientific meeting in the Society was held in October 17. with 4 lectures, the abstracts appeared in (3).
The first lecture was held by Edmund Zeuthen Jensen (1861-1950)
It concerned a special case of keratitis, beginning in the left eye as conjunctivitis, complicated 5-6 weeks later by keratitis and ulceration, treated with cauterisation, cocaine, atropine. After more than one year the eye became phthisic and was enucleated. Than the right eye became keratitis with exacerbations. Perhaps the patient also had Tb - lung disease.
Edmund was a Danish ophthalmologist with practice in Copenhagen, later head of the ophthalmic department at St. Joseph Hospital in Copenhagen.
Edmund is also well known in Denmark, because he is father to Carsten Edmund (1897-1973) head of the ophthalmologic department , Frederiksberg Hospital. He is father to Jens Edmund (1923-2002), Rigshospitalet, Copenhagen, lecturer at the University. Jens again is father to Carsten Anker Edmund (1947- ) at Rigshospitalet and lecturer at the University of Copenhagen.
The next paper at the first meeting was V. Hertz: A case of keratitis caused by syphilis.
Valdemar Hertz (1869-1954 ) had ophthalmologic practice in Copenhagen from 1903 and treated ophthalmologic diseases in Greenland in 1926, 28, 32 and 1938.
The next lecturer was Bentzen concerning 4 cases of bulbus – perforations, causes by glass from bottles. Two of the patients were demonstrated at the meeting in the Society. One with an almost 1 cm long temporal scleral perforation, silk – sutured with normal vision. The other was a corneal perforation with iris – adherence and cataract, visus was reduced to 0,1.
Christian Frederik Bentzen (1864-50) became chief for the ophthalmic department at the Municipal Hospital in Copenhagen (Kommune Hospitalet) from 1903.
The last lecturer was Bjerrum: Demonstration of 3 cases with surgical treated myopia by cataract – discission, with a survey of Danish and international results.
The papers at the meeting were discussed lively by altogether 1+2+3 participants.
In this year (1900) the Danish ophthalmologist Marius Tscherning (1854-1939) was still assistant for the famous Louis Emilie Javal (1839-1907) at his laboratory at the Sorbonne University in Paris (Fig. 1-3). Javal dictated and his dauther Mathilde wrote a letter to Tscherning on May 4. to get a good advice: Should Javal be treated for his glaucoma with an iridectomy on his last eye? Hjalmar Schiøtz from Norway advised iridectomy, not sclerotomia posterior. Javal got completely blind the next year after an iridectomy.(6).
In the same year Tscherning published his first papers concerning the vision in semi-darkness with his photometric grey filter glasses with logarithmic intervals, to determine vision after few minutes in darkness, mesoptic vision, vision in darkness and also colour vision in semidarkness (4-7).
1902.
Professor Bjerrum demonstrated his water filled spectacles in the Society in Copenhagen February 12.. It was a kind of contact lenses, used in keratoconus, cf. The Baltic Eye 2005:Dec: 46. (Fig. 4).
1903.
Edmund Jensen was elected as chairman and E. Brun as secretary for the Danish ophthalmologic Society in Copenhagen Marts 18.
The society has now 24 members, of this 5 new members: One of them was the Danish ophthalmologist from Djawa, Michael Balling, later Copenhagen. At that time, Java was a Dutch colony. He believed, that more Danish colonists should go to Djawa. Other new members were: Andreas Boeg with ophthalmic practice in Næstved, Zealand, Niels Høeg, later with practice in Horsens, Jutland and Herman Mollerup with practice in Sorø, Zealand.
The next Nordic Congress should be in Copenhagen. Grut (8) was worried about financial problems, but 32 of the Nordic members contributed, totalling the enormous sum at that time: 1800 Danish crowns. Grut wanted the number of women restricted.
The Nordic Congress was 11-13. June 1903 in Copenhagen. Diseases, actual at that time were discussed: Lupus vulgaris, among 1000 was 368 with eye diseases: Tb keratitis, Tb dacryocystitis (Benzen) - Optic iridectomy should not be used so much (Grut), glaucoma was discussed. Bjerrum investigated the owl eye histological: The eye is immobile, sclera fixed in spongious orbital tissue, the binocular visual field is only 30-40 degrees.
1907.
The III. Nordic Congress was held in Oslo, Norway. Hjalmar Schiøtz demonstrated his famous weight tonometer from 1905. Goldmann’s applanation tonometer appeared in 1954, but after this Schiøtz’ tonometer was still used in fare destinations as Greenland for many years.
At the Nordic meeting only 13 from Norway and 9 from Denmark participated, because Norway had just escaped the Union with Sweden.
1908-09.
The very first ophthalmologist Carl Martin Normann-Hansen (1861-47) worked in Greenland, at that time a Danish colony. He was named of the inuit: “Him, with the hay in the face” (long bear) or “natigok” (wait!), because he “only” understood inuit language, when slowly spoken. Inuit language is difficult to learn! Norman – Hansen extracted the very first cataract in Greenland at the old Marie in Ivigtut Kryolitbrud, a mature cataract with success. He extracted a cataract in Umanaq, a geographic record, 71 degrees north. He found pterygia, microphthalmus, bufthalmus, often invers astigmatism. Glaucoma was very frequent and he found the high frequency of blindness in Greenland: 2-3 pro mille against 0,5 in Denmark (9).
Norman – Hansen was very critical against the Danish colony policy in Greenland.
I am sorry, because I believed, that the Danes were the best to co – operate with inuit, compared with the circumpolar inuit in Alaska, Canada and Northern Russia.
In 1908 Edmund Jensen described “Jensens disease”, retinochorioiditis juxtapapillaris with vision defect.
In 1909 Christian Frederik Heerfordt described febris uveoparotidea. Heerfordt was funder of the Association of Young Doctors .
In 1908 Henning Rønne (1878-47) described the nasal step pathognominic for glaucoma (10) . It is an important visual defect, supplementing Bjerrum’s arcuate scotoma. Two very important Danish contributions to the diagnosis of glaucoma.
I like therefore to describe the national Danish history of ophthalmology with its many highlights. But I know, that other nations also had contributed very much to the ophthalmological development.
References.
- Andersen,S Ry: The history of the Danish ophthalmological society 1900-2000. Acta Ophthalmol. 2002; suppl. 234: 6-20.
- Norn,M: The Societys archives, in (1) 24-38
- Forhandlinger i det Oftalmologiske Selskab i København 1900-1926. Cohens Bogtrykkeri 1901, Levin og Munksgaard, København . In Danish.
- Tscherning,M: Physiologic optics. Keyston, Philadelphia, USA, 1900:1-153.
- Norn,M , Jensen, O.A.: Marius Tscherning, his life and work in optical physiology. Acta Ophthalmol. 2004, 82: 5o1-508.
- Norn,M: Tschernings optisk fysiologiske kælder laboratorium på museets øverste etage. Set og Sket 1995; 5: 43-54 (in Danish).
- Norn,M: Mørkesyn og adaptation i dansk oftalmologi 1899-1990. Dansk medicin historisk Årbog 2004;32:157-171. (In Danish).
- Norn, M: Nordiske oftalmolog kongresser. Oftalmolog 1989; 9 (1) 20. (In Danish).
- Norn, M: Oftalmologiens historie i Grønland. Oftalmolog 2002; suppl. 1: 6-9.(In Danish).
- Gregersen,E, Larsen, HW, Norn,M: Oftalmolgi. Københavns Universitet VII: 459, København 1979 (In Danish).
Text til Fig.s:
Fig. 1. Young’s optometer for examinations of refraction, used by M.Tscherning (the Medical History Museion, University of Copenhagen).
Fig. 2. From Medical History Museion: To the left Javal’s keratometer. In the middle: A slit lamp from Helga Frandsen 1928 (RIN 100436) . To the right an arc perimeter. Photo: Nils Rehn, Stockholm.
Fig. 3. The first of the modern computer Octopus perimeters, mounted by Hedelund 1999 in the depot of Medical History Museion, St. Joseph Hospital.
Fig. 4. Bjerrum’s water filled spectacles in Medical Museion, Bredgade 62, Copenhagen.
Alvar Gullstrand, not satisfied
Tscherning treated Javal
Office equipment 80 years ago
Office equipment 30 years ago