To celebrate the centennial of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the Archives has been publishing a series of "Landmark Articles" approximately 100 years old. By doing so, we hope to honor a vital organization that has been capable of changing successfully with changing times. Starting as a means of disseminating information to practitioners far from the East Coast centers of the 1890s, the Academy added Transactions in 1907; formed (along with the American Ophthalmological Society and the Section on Ophthalmology of the American Medical Association) the first specialty board—the American Board for Ophthalmic Examinations—in 1916; began postgraduate instruction and started the eye and ear, nose, and throat pathology sections within the Army Medical Museum in 1921; began the Home Study Courses in 1940; and, in our own time, has become politically active as well as responding to the changes in health insurance in a proactive manner.
One hundred years is