The birth of modern ophthalmology may be said to date from the invention of the ophthalmoscope, the news of which Helmholtz first published in 1851. The beginnings of the new science were chronicled in the Archiv für Ophthalmologie, brought out in January, 1854, under the direction of Albrecht von Graefe who was entirely responsible for the first half of volume 1. The second half of the first volume appeared in April, 1855, and the names of Ferdinand Arlt in Prague and Franz Cornelius Donders in Utrecht were thenceforth associated with that of the illustrious founder as editors. The triumvirate remained unbroken until the death of von Graefe in 1870.
It was in the winter of 1859 that I became a pupil of Arlt. The following year I passed with von Graefe in Berlin. I went from there to Utrecht, and later attended the clinics of Bowman and Critchett in