In 1851, the introduction of the ophthalmoscope by Von Helmholtz revolutionized ophthalmology. With the ophthalmoscope, Von Graefe and others at the time were the first to visualize the optic disc of blind patients in whom the eyeballs were firm but noncongested. They classified this condition as simple glaucoma and labeled the appearance of the optic disc as ‘cupped’. Since then, the term ‘cup...

FAILURES in the surgical management of malignant glaucoma (von Graefe, 1869; Smith, 1891; Chandler, 1950; McDonald, 1954) call attention to the syndrome of prodromal malignant glaucoma in which success has been reported (Birge, 1956). Based on a new and possibly radical operation performed before the devastating complications which give rise to malignant glaucoma can occur (Birge, 1952, 1953, 1...

Sir William Mackenzie (I835) was the first to describe raised intraocular pressure (IOP) in glaucoma. Following the introduction of the ophthalmoscope, the presence of glaucomatous cupping was soon recognized (Jacobson, I853; Jaeger, I854; von Graefe, 1854; Weber, i 855; and others) and was confirmed histopathologically by Miuller (1856). Mackenzie (i854) described flattened and atrophic nerves...

Leber's hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON) was first described in 1858 by von Graefe.' It was later named after Theodore Leber in recognition of his paper published in von Graefe' Archives of Ophthalmology in 1871.2 Characteristically the disease presents in the second or third decades oflife as a subacute optic neuropathy, developing sequentially in the two eyes, with vision reduced to worse t...