At the age of 46 the Dutch ophthalmologist Jan Kok died on 21 November 1998. Jan did not survive complications associated with a bone marrow transplant he received to treat the multiple myeloma from which he suffered. He was trained as an ophthalmologist at the Rotterdam Eye Hospital and started his career as head of the contact lens department of the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam. His research in this field resulted in a PhD thesis entitled “New developments in the field of contact lenses” which was widely distributed. With his ambitions in anterior segment surgery he followed in the footsteps of his mother, Clariet Kok- van Alphen, the pioneer of corneal …