Hermann von Helmholz : the inventor of the ophthalmoscope / Casey A. Wood.

  • Wood, Casey A. (Casey Albert), 1856-1942.
Date:
[1902]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Hermann von Helmholz : the inventor of the ophthalmoscope / Casey A. Wood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    fortune to have been thrown in contact with many of the teachers that have made that institution famous—with Helmholtz. Du Bois Keymond, Konig, Fritsch, Gad and others of the s?/me school. No one could fail to be im- pressed by the spirit of earnestness, simplicity and devo- tion to science for its own sake that characterized the labors of these brilliant investigators. I can not refrain from mentioning a circumstance illustrative of this idea^^ that is familiar to most of you. At intervals the students and teachers of the Institute were invited for a social gathering to some convenient place where all topics imaginable—but especially scientific subjects—were dis- cussed. One in particular I remember at which Helm- holtz and Du Bois Reymond were present. It was called, if I recollect aright, in the invitation posted at the In- stitute, eine Bier-mici'oscopische Versammlung, a term fairly descriptive of the entertainment, because we wore our everyday clothes, drank beer, ate sandwiches, exam- ined microscopical slides, listened to animated scientific discussion and enjoyed what then, and what still seems to me to be the very best society in Germany. Probably a corresponding entertainment would be represented in some other countries by an orchestra behind a row of palms, floral decorations, ten courses of indigestible imi- tations of French cooking and all the guests in their dress suits and on their finest behavior. Whenever I attend a medical banquet I can not help breathing a sigh for the simple (primitive, if you will) social joys of the German University. Something, by the way, ought to be here said about the important work which Helmholtz did in perfecting the microscope—in supplementing the labors of Abbe of Jena in this direction. Among many other things he showed us how to find and measure the angle of aperture, and he proved that because of the light-dispersion at the margins of minute objects none of these can be seen that are of a smaller diameter than 1/5000 of a millimeter. In some form or other and at some time or other the great problems relating to the forces that play in us and about us occupy one's attention, and Helmholtz endeav- ored to solve some of these great questions (so far as physical research can ever solve them) in his famous es- say, Ueber die Erhaltung der Kraft. Although the principle of the conservation of energy is now so uni-