GEORGE CHANDLER AND HIS ‘A TREATISE ON THE DISEASES OF THE EYE AND THEIR REMEDIES’

We present the work of George Chandler an eighteenth-century English surgeon who wrote two works to ophthalmology. ‘A Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye and their Remedies ‘‘To Which is Prefixed the Anatomy of the Eye: The Theory of Vision; and The Several Species of Imperfect Sight’

His work was an excellent attempt to present the knowledge of his time in a textbook of eye diseases when little was available in the English language.

The facts took place in England from 1769 to 1823, and this work was conceived and completed in the 1st Ophthalmologic Clinic of the AHEPA University Hospital.

METHODS: We use the original book with his work: 'A Treatise of the diseases of the eyes’, from 1780.

In this work he includes part I with a complete treatise of the anatomy, the theory of vision, ‘ the imperfect sights’(myopia, hemeralopia(Gr),presbyopia), and strabismus. He continues with part II including blepharoptosis, lagophthalmos, ectropium, trichiasis, Ancyloblepharon, infections, epiphora,cancer of the eyelids, encanthis, pterygium, pannus, fistula lachrymalis , ophthalmia and corneal disorders. It includes two excellent plates that depict the visual function  of the eyes.

In chapter XXII Chandler describes the appearance of the cataract, the pathology, its type, the development and finally the method of its treatment.  There are descriptions of different types of  cataract. Finally he describes surgery by couching. In this section includes two excellent gravure-plates and the descriptions of the tools, and his method. In these he includes the couching needle, the eye  and the cornea. In the second pate he explains the method, with three instruments: the knife, the lancet and the curved scissors.

Chandler's book appears to have been accepted in England. His book had a German edition published in Leipzig in 1782, but it was criticized by Richter, Beer, and Sprengel, who declared that it was not based on personal experience and further needed to be completed. The tendency of surgeons to concentrate on diseases of the eye met with strong resistance in England.

But the work does convey in plain English the teachings of the leaders in eye surgery of his  generation and the preceding generation.

George Chandler provided the medical world with a concise and very useful compendium of the cure of eye disorders, including the surgical methods for the cataract and the  accessory parts of the eye
His contribution to Ophthalmology was important even without the acceptance of his colleagues. He includes also the whole pathology of the eye, lids, cornea, lacrimal disorders, infections, symblepharon, the visual function with his own excellent plates.

Chandler have been a knowledgeable surgeon, as his writings indicates. His work even it was concise contains considerably more than usual information of surgical procedures as well as the instruments for the cataract surgery