The ophthalmology of Fabricius Hildanus in the 17th century

Summary

Wilhelm Fabricius, born in Hilden, near Düsseldorf, (Fabricius Hildanus) lived from 1560 until 1634. He had been working as physician and surgeon in Switzerland. He left a voluminous literature posthumously edited as ‘Opera observationum et curationum medicochirurgicarum’. It is a compendium of 600 extremely interesting pathological cases, some of them in form of letters to close colleagues. Ophthalmology is represented by quite a big chapter, one of them reports a successfully performed exenteratio orbitae because of a tumor. Further parts, for example, describe special ophthalmic twizzers with certain fixing mechanisms and some kind of an operation table equipped by an adjustible prop for the operator’s arm. Fabricius points out that after perforation of the eye the loss of aqueous humour is not consequently noxious. He, too, demonstrates the treatment of a symblepharon and describes amongst other therapies the first successful magnetic extraction of an iron foreign body out of the eye in ophthalmic history.