This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
To the Editor.—This is in reply to your letter of December 6, regarding the history of the "subconjunctival tunneling."
The procedure with the keratome was conceived by me in January, 1905; I had not previously seen any ophthalmic surgeon perform this operation, nor had I seen anything in the literature regarding it. I communicated the procedure in Heidelberg in 1906 (fig. 5), and in Annales d'oculistique in May, 1907 (figs. 4 and 27, pp. 351 and 365).
One of my predecessors, C. Bader (1881), made an extralimbal incision upward with an ordinary Graefe cataract knife, leaving the conjunctiva uncut; thus the iris—and often the processus ciliaris—fell out subconjunctivally (On Sclerotomy, Tr. Ophth. Soc. U. Kingdom2: 127, 1881-1882).
Another of my predecessors, H. Herbert, in India, made a short limbal incision and extralimbal conjunctival flap with a narrow (1 mm. or tapered) Graefe knife, performed iris