Lasers in Ophthalmology

Abstract

Laser light had its first medical application in the field of ophthalmology. This is not surprising because ophthalmologists have been applying light for the treatment of various eye diseases since the early 1950s. For centuries man has known that prolonged exposure of his eyes to the sun results in visual loss. With the development of the ophthalmoscope in the middle of the 19th century, the deleterious effects of the sun’s rays were seen to be a burn in the central part of the retina, the macula, the area of the retina responsible for central or acute vision. Ophthalmologists have long thought that if the sun's rays could be applied selectively, the use of such burns of the retina and underlying choroid could serve a useful purpose. It remained for Meyer-Schwickerath in his experiments in Frankfurt, Bonn, and Essen after World War II to demonstrate the feasibility of placing such burns therapeutically and to aid in the development of the equipment to make controlled photocoagulation of retinal tissue a reality. Dr. Meyer-Schwickerath and Dr. Litman of the Zeiss Optical Company collaborated in the design of a xenon-arc white-light photocoagulator, which was introduced in the early 1950s and has has been widely used throughout the world since then.