The eye of Vesalius

Abstract

In the time of Vesalius, knowledge of ocular anatomy was limited. The first description of the anatomy of the eye comes from Democrites, for whom the eye was surrounded by two 'coats', filled with a homogenous fluid. The optic nerve was hollow and the lens was considered to be a postmortem artefact. Until the 15th century AD, medicine was influenced by the writings of Galenus and the model of the eye he proposed was still considered valid, even after Vesalius. According to the Alexandrian tradition, the lens was considered as the seat of visual perception. Although Vesalius rightly deserves the title of father of modern anatomy, his description of ocular anatomy was rudimentary and often incorrect. He described a musculus retractorius bulbi, which is found only in lower mammals, not in primates. The lens, the role of which as an optical device he recognized correctly, was placed too centrally in the eye. The optic nerve was not correctly placed and, following Galenus, Vesalius described only seven cranial nerves. The Galenian concept of ocular anatomy was to endure until the development of the microscope by Anthony van Leeuwenhoek. Modern ocular anatomy, in fact, can be dated from the works of Zinn.