There is nothing so interesting and instructive as the lives and records of great men. For many years thoughts about Johannes Müller have engaged me, and for a long time I have wished to compile a chapter which, in addition to giving a brief description of the man and his personality, would revive in others memories of the part he took in the foundation of modern ophthalmology through his investigations of the physiology of the organ of vision.
Müller was born at Coblentz on the Rhine, July 14, 1801. He came of good common stock; his grandfather was a vine dresser, and his father, Matthias, was a shoemaker and saddler, in comfortable circumstances. Johannes was the eldest of five children, but he was the only one of whom one hears anything of importance. At school he excelled in mathematics and drawing and was a fine classical scholar. He translated the