Ophthalmology-related scientists

Ophthalmology-related scientists

Juzer Surka is an ophthalmologist and enthusiastic philatelist, who first started collecting stamps and commemorative envelopes at a young age. In subsequent years he has focused his collection and research on medically themed stamps, and more specifically, on those relating to the field of Ophthalmology, where he has collected to date in the region of around 60 original stamps.

In 2005, as a member of the National Committee for the Prevention of Blindness, he was instrumental in getting the South African Postal Service to release a stamp to raise awareness around the prevention of blindness – an elegant, plain white stamp with the word ‘Hello’ written in Braille. It was a first of its kind in the history of South African philately. Philately is the study and collection of postage stamps. As stamp collecting gained in popularity over the years and around the world, collectors became more specialised in their areas of interests and collections; medical philately being no exception. Many countries have produced stamps on a wide range of medical topics, from health promotion and disease prevention to medical advances and notable clinicians. Ophthalmology has its fair share of stamps, and discovering them can be a fun and interesting way to learn about some of the history and heritage of the specialty. In this series, we intend to look at various ophthalmology-related stamps, starting with famous clinicians and scientists. We hope the reader finds this to be informative and fun.

Hermann von Helmholtz (1821–1894)

Helmholtz was not an ophthalmologist but he specialised in Anatomy and Physiology. His first important scientific achievement, an 1847 treatise on the conservation of energy, was written in the context of his medical studies and philosophical background.

Helmholtz was a pioneer in the scientific study of human vision and audition. Inspired by psychophysics, he was interested in the relationships between measurable physical stimuli and their correspondent human perceptions.

In 1851, Helmholtz inaugurated the modern era in Ophthalmology with the invention of the ophthalmoscope; the ophthalmoscope became the model for all forms of endoscopy that followed. It is often compared in importance with two earlier inventions, the telescope (17th century) and the stethoscope (early 19th century).

Helmholtz’s interests at that time were increasingly focused on the physiology of the senses. His main publication, titled Handbuch der Physiologischen Optik (Handbook of Physiological Optics or Treatise on Physiological Optics), provided empirical theories on depth perception, colour and motion perception, and became the fundamental reference work in his field during the second half of the nineteenth century. In the third and final volume, published in 1867, Helmholtz described the importance of unconscious inferences for perception. The Handbuch was first translated into English under the editorship of James PC Southall on behalf of the Optical Society of America in 1924/25.

His theory of accommodation went unchallenged until the final decade of the 20th century.

Hermann von Helmholtz stamps issued by West Germany (1994)

Hasan Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039)

Hasan Ibn al-Haytham stamps issued by Pakistan (1969)

Abu Ali al-Hasan ibn al-Haytham was an Arab mathematician, astronomer and physicist of the Islamic Golden age, and is known in the West as Alhazen. Also sometimes referred to as ‘the father of modern optics’, he made significant contributions to the principles of optics and visual perception in particular.

His most influential work is titled Kitab al-Manaẓir (Book of Optics), written during the period 1011–1021, which survived in a Latin edition.

Hasan Ibn al-Haytham stamps issued by Qatar (1971)

Ibn al-Haytham was the first to explain that vision occurs when light reflects from an object and then passes to one’s eyes. He was also the first to demonstrate that vision occurs in the brain, rather than in the eyes.

He is called the Father of Optics for his writings on and experiments with lenses, mirrors, refraction and reflection. He correctly stated that vision results from light that is reflected in the eye by an object, not emitted by the eye itself, and then reflected, as Aristotle believed.

Hulusi Bechet (1889–1948)

Hulusi Bechet stamps issued by Turkey (1980)

Hulusi Bechet was born in Istanbul during the Ottoman Empire. He graduated from Gülhane Military Medical Academy in Istanbul. At the age of 21 years, in 1910, he became a physician specialising in dermatology and syphilis. He did his postgraduate study in Berlin and Budapest during the First World War.

The disease that bears his name and is characterised by mouth ulcer, genital ulcer and eye inflammation, was described by him in 1937. Ocular inflammation with retina involvement is a major cause of blindness in such patients. There is not a specific blood test for the condition and the diagnosis depends on the clinical signs. The disease is common in the Mediterranean area and Japan.

Bechet also published extensively on syphilis, and was the editor of the Turkish Periodical of Dermatology. He died in 1948 at the age of 59 years from myocardial infarction.

Hulusi Bechet stamps issued by Tunisia (1986)

Percy Lavon Julian (1899–1975)

Percy Lavon Julian synthesised physostigmine for the treatment of glaucoma, and cortisone for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.

Born in Alabama, the grandson of a former slave, Julian had limited schooling because Montgomery provided no public education for Blacks after the eighth grade. Advised against pursuing a graduate education because of his race, Julian went to Fisk University to teach chemistry.

His synthesis reduced the price of cortisone from hundreds of dollars per drop for natural cortisone to a few cents per gram.

Percy Lavon Julian stamp issued by the USA in 1993

Ragnar Granit (1900–1991)

Finnish-Swedish physiologist Ragnar Arthur Granit shared the 1967 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine with two American scientists, George Wald (1906–1997) and Halden K Hartline (1903–1983).

They received the award ‘for their discoveries concerning the primary physiological and chemical visual processes in the eye’. Specifically, Granit analysed the external electrical changes that occur when the eye is exposed to light. Biochemical proof of Granit’s theory of the spectral sensitivities of the three types of cone cells (blue, green and red) was provided in the 1950s when Wald isolated the three cone pigments.

In the early 1930s, Granit was the first person to observe inhibition in the retina of the eye. His book, titled Sensory Mechanisms of Retina (1947), became a classic work in the field of retinal electrophysiology. He used electrophysiologic methods to demonstrate the presence of three kinds of colour receptor elements in the retina and to show the importance of inhibition among nerve cells in retinal function and in the nervous system in general.

Granit died on 12 March 1991.

Ragnar Granit stamps issued by Sweden (1996)

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832)

was in his 20s, he was an important figure in the blossoming of 18th-century German literature, famous for fiction works like Faust. But Goethe explored diverse creative paths.

He published his ideas about colour in 1810, as Theory of Colours. By this time, people were familiar with the colour theories of Sir Isaac Newton, the English scientist and mathematician. Newton had published Opticks, the results of his experiments on light and colour, in 1704. In it, he stated that colour came from light and was the result of physics. Most people accepted this idea – except Goethe.

Unlike Newton, Goethe argued that colour needed darkness, and some colours were made with elements of darkness. Scientifically, Newton was right. But Goethe’s theories were more art and philosophy than pure science. And, if you think about it, there are differences between how colour is created via the visible spectrum (where white is the combination of all colours) versus with pigments (where the more colours you mix, the darker a colour you get). In a way, it was pigments, or colours in paint, that led to Goethe’s colour experiments, so it is not surprising his ideas differed from those of Newton. 

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stamps issued by Italy (1999)

Prof J Surka

Prof J Surka MBBS, DOMS, MS(Ophth), FCS(Ophth)SA Email: jsurka@gmail.com