Adolph Barkan (1845-1935), European Ophthalmologist in San Francisco

Abstract

Adolph Barkan, a mid-19th century Central European-born and -trained ophthalmologist, spent almost half his nearly 91 years in a very successful career on the West Coast of the United States. His activities included intimate involvement in the development of a private medical school and with this school's acquisition by Stanford University as its medical school. In retirement, he founded, financed, and stocked a large medical history library at that university. In the 1890s, Siegfried Czapski, the developer of the Carl Zeiss corneal biomicroscope, the direct precursor of today's slitlamp, incorporated Barkan's suggestion that Czapski replace the planned monoscopic binocular microscope with a stereoscopic binocular one, an essential modification of the device. This Zeiss invention lacked only the slit illumination of today's instrument. Comments he wrote in a memoir-diary during World War I explain how he came to the decision to stray and to stay so far from his roots.