David Maurice's contributions to optical ophthalmic instrumentation: roots of the scanning slit clinical confocal microscope.
This paper explores the seminal contributions of David Maurice to the field of ophthalmic instrumentation. His development of the specular microscope, the scanning slit optical confocal microscope, and the corneal microfluorometer resulted in advances in our understanding of corneal morphology, physiology, and pathology. The development of the scanning slit, clinical confocal microscope is not a new paradigm or a paradigm shift, but a continuous series of interlinked technical advances from the early work of Vogt to Thaer's development of a clinical confocal microscope. For each instrument both the connection to the prior work of others and the unique advances are discussed and contrasted. This paper develops the connections and parallel developments in the instrument developments of Goldmann, Maurice, Svishchev, Baer, Koester, Masters, and Thaer. The evidence in support of the thesis consists of published papers, patents, personal communication, and study of Goldmann's book collection in Bern. A second theme is that knowledge of physics is a prerequisite for optical instrument development in ophthalmology. David Maurice had a university degree in physics and Hans Goldmann learned physics from his books. The contributions of David Maurice to optical instrumentation follow the major contributions of Goldmann and facilitated and stimulated other scientists who acknowledged their important intellectual debt to David Maurice.
Masters
Barry R
BR
Department of Ophthalmology, University of Bern, Hochschulstrasse 4, 3020 Bern, Switzerland. brmail2001@yahoo.com
D003315:Cornea / Q000033:anatomy & histology; D003941:Diagnostic Techniques, Ophthalmological / Q000266:history* / Q000295:instrumentation*; D004867:Equipment Design; D049673:History, 20th Century; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000266:history* / Q000295:instrumentation