System of Ophthalmology, Vol. 2: The Anatomy of the Visual System by Sir Stewart Duke-Elder & Kenneth C. Wybar.

Duke-Elder, Sir Stewart (Ed.)

Publication Date: 1976

About this Item

London, Henry Kimpton, 1960 (Reprinted 1976), 8°, XXII, 901 pp., with 842 Illustrations and 3 coloured Plates, orig. Cloth. "This book forms a now edition of the section of anatomy in my Textbook of Ophthalmology. Its greater bulk is due partly to the fact that anatomy today is in no sense a dead subject but is rapidly growing, and partly because the text has been amplified in two respects. In the first place, I have paid considerable attention to the historical development of the subject ; apart from its great intrinsic interest, it cannot be denied that an appreciation of how our knowledge has evolved through the years not only makes its factual presentation a living story of triumphs and mistakes, but has a salutary effect in convincing the reader that what we accept today with apparent assurance will almost certainly be changed tomorrow. I have also stressed more than is perhaps usual the functional aspects of structure. In the Textbook, anatomy and physiology were contained within the same volume so that it was easy for the one to supplement the other ; but a treatise on structure alone with no indication of why it is so constituted is meaningless and lacks its essential interest. The striking advances made in the anatomy of the visual system since the first edition was written thirty years ago are indeed remarkable. It is astonishing, for example, that it is only quite recently that the finer structure of a region so important as the angle of the anterior chamber of the eye has been intensively investigated or that the more intimate ramifications of the intra-ocular vascular system are becoming appreciated. Even today the anatomy of the central nervous organization subserving vision with its widespread limbic, thalamic and reticular connections is only beginning to be understood. Finally with the introduction of the electron microscope and its application to ocular anatomy within the last two decades, a revolution is being effected in our appreciation of structure as complete as that which is extending the scope of astronomy by thousands of millions of light years since the radio-telescope has come to supplement the optical telescope. Indeed, this volume probably marks the end of an era that has lasted a little over a century, wherein histological anatomy replaced the structure of gross structures ; its successor will deal not only with cells but the molecular world within the cells, and when we know how to interpret the new appearances rapidly being unfolded, it would seem the study of form and function rapidly being unfolded, it would seem that the study of form and function will be welded into an indivisible entity." Preface, Stewart Duke-Elder. Institute of Ophthalmology, University of London, 1960. Sir William Stewart Duke-Elder (22 April 1898 - 27 March 1978) Scottish ophthalmologist, was a dominant force in his field for more than a quarter of a century.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: System of Ophthalmology, Vol. 2: The Anatomy of the Visual System by Sir Stewart Duke-Elder & Kenneth C. Wybar.
• Publication Date: 1976
• Binding: Hardcover
• Seller catalogs:
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