The word “eye” has its origin in Anglo-Saxon, probably from the Baltic languages, with the Fresian “oie” the closest precursor. In middle English it is variously spelt as ighe, eghe, eighe, and eie. It is not surprising that there is a town of Eye in Suffolk, and that eye hospitals are an Anglo-Saxon phenomenon. Their origin in the early part of the 19th century had been preceded by the recognition of the surgeon oculist as a separate entity on the 18th century medical register. After the inception of eye hospitals ophthalmology was accepted as an individual specialty.

The earliest blind asylums in Europe coincided with the crusades, in Germany at Meiningen (1173) and in France the Quinze Vingts (1266). The latter was specifically founded to treat crusaders “afflicted by the burning plains of Egypt and Syria.”

Blind asylums in Dublin (1781), Liverpool (1791), Edinburgh (1793), and Bristol (1799) all preceded the establishment of eye hospitals while, in London, the Blind Asylum at St George’s in the Fields, Southwark, was contemporaneous with the Royal London Hospital for Diseases of the Eye and Ear, later known as Moorfields Eye Hospital (1805).

HOW PREVALENT WAS TRACHOMA IN THESE HOSPITALS?

The prolonged battle of Aboukir in Egypt in 1801 was accompanied on both sides by a severe epidemic during the summer months and, coinciding with scurvy, of a condition referred …