ABSTRACT
The history of the visual examination is discussed in five parts. The history of visual
acuity is followed from the minimum separabile of Persian scientists to the 19th-century charts. Events in the history of the examination
of the pupil include the late discovery of the significance of anisocoria in trauma,
the description of the pupillary light reflex, the midbrain nucleus responsible for
it, and the discovery of the neuroanatomic basis of pupillary abnormalities. Attempts
to look into the eyeball date from the 17th century and are followed up to the discovery
of the ophthalmoscope (1851). The evolution of the visual field examination is described
from the first observations of hemianopia in the Hippocratic Corpus, to the present
day visual field examination. Important landmarks in the history of central disorders
of visual integration include "mind blindness" and the theories on aphasia that formed
the basis for the study of disorders of central integration.
KEYWORD
History of medicine - visual acuity - pupil - ophthalmoscopy - visual fields
