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Ophthalmic surgery has attained a high level of efficiency. It is probable that with present instrumentation little further improvement in technique is likely to occur.
We ophthalmic surgeons as a group, however, have been slow to take advantage of one of our greatest advantages, our experience and facility with magnifying devices. We use the slit lamp automatically for diagnostic purposes, but few indeed make full use of its potential, even for such minor tasks as removing corneal foreign bodies. It is curious that the slit lamp, devised by ophthalmologists, has been incorporated into an operating microscope which is more familiar to the otologist, neurosurgeon, and vascular surgeon than it is to the ophthalmic surgeon. I would like to propose that the real future of ophthalmic surgery, from a technical standpoint at least, lies in the development of microsurgery.
It is not likely that the experienced surgeon will take readily to