We are proud to announce:
Robert F. Heitz, M.D. , ph.D.
THE HISTORY OF CONTACT LENSES
In Three Parts
Volume One
Early Neutralizations of the Corneal Dioptric Power
This fascinating history of contact lenses is the very first historical treatise written on this subject. Intrigued by countless historic mistakes and misinterpretations in the history of contact lenses, which are constantly reiterated, the author started some 30 years ago to collect documents and to interview the people who had been directly involved in the more recent developments of the contact lenses.
Heitz published parts of his findings in Contactologia.
Now, after all these years, he decided to publish the complete History of Contact Lenses.
The real one.
Thanks to his professional governmental relations, many doors, otherwise closed to the public, opened, giving him access to unique medico-historical documents which had never been scrutinized before and were therefore totally unknown to the public scholar.
Studying Leonardo da Vinci´s famous drawings he made astonishing discoveries, dismantling old and cherished theories about the history of contact lenses.
For the first time a complete translation and analysis of the often cited works of Da Vinci were made available in their real context.
Also, having now access to the original handwritten reports of the (French) Royal Academy of Sciences, he made further important discoveries, uncovering countless historical errors that are repeated until today in medical-historical manuals.
Many very important documents dating from the late 16th and early 17th century are published here for the first time!
Heitz uncovered, among others, a previously unpublished document by the famous optics pioneer Christian Huygens who made important corrections regarding the “Contact Tube” of the no less famous Descartes. Heitz´s work is the result of long investigations, difficult translations and studies of the original source material in the Italian, French, English and German languages.
The first volume, now available, is divided into following chapters:
Ø Leonardo da Vinci´s Ocular Immersions
Ø René Descartes “Contact Tube”
Ø Christian Huygens´ “Contact Cone”
Ø Philippe de la Hire´s “Ocular Contact”
Ø Jean Méry´s Neutralization of Corneal Dioptric Power in a Living Eye. Read this chapter now! Click here
Ø François Pourfour du Petit´s Neutralization of the Corneal Dioptric Power
Ø Corneal Immersion by Thomas Young
Ø Corneal Facsimiles of John William Herschel
Ø The Era of Orthoscopes
Ø Biographies
Heitz’s work is preceded by an extended table of contents and ends with a complete index of names. It is fascinating reading packed with interesting new information and descriptions of experiments that finally, five hundred years later, culminated in the development of to-day’s most popular visual device: the contact lens.
The author:
Heitz, Robert Fernand (*1932) French ophthalmologist and historian. Heitz was born in
Haguenau, Alsace, France. He went to Strasbourg and received his MD in 1960. His
internship was served at the Hôpitaux de la Région Sanitaire de Strasbourg from 1956
to1960 and he became an ophthalmologist under Jean Nordmann in 1963. Heitz was
Assistant at the Institut de Parasitologie of the Strasbourg University from 1961 to 1962,
Director of Clinical Education at the Strasbourg Louis Pasteur University from 1983 to
1997. He was Head of the Ophthalmic Clinic at the Centre Hospitalier de Haguenau and
expert to the Head of the Hospitals at the Minister of Public Health in Paris and to the
French Agency of Health Products (as President of the Commission for Homologation and
Material Control in Ophthalmology). He is a member of the Société Française
d’Ophtalmologie; Deutsche Ophthalmologische Gesellschaft, Société d’Ophtalmologie de
l’Est de la France, Société française des Ophtalmologistes adaptateurs de Prothèses de
Contact, European Contact Lens Society (ECLSO),( Founder, then treasurer). Société
d’histoire de la médecine, Société francophone d’histoire de l’ophtalmologie, Julius
Hirschberg Gesellschaft fuer Geschichte der Augenheilkunde. Heitz received the Fick-
Kalt-Müller Medal from the ECLSO in 1983 and the Louis Emile Javal Silver Service
Distinction from the International Contact Lens Council of Ophthalmology in 1986. He
was the founder, then from 1979 to 1991, Editor in Chief of both , the French and the
German edition of the international medical journal Contactologia (Enke Stuttgart) and
co-author, with G. Elie of Guide de Contactologie Médicale 1988. He has authored more
than 150 publications mainly in French, but also in German and English, about the ophthalmic
clinical aspects of contact lenses and about the history of contact lenses and public
health. Heitz attained his PhD (Paris, École Pratique des Hautes Études) after presenting a
thesis on the History of Corneal Neutralization and of Contact Lenses (Étude historique
des principes et des applications des systèmes de contact oculaire dans le contexte des
connaissances du XVIe siècle à la première moitié du XXe siècle).
Heitz is presently an Associate Researcher at the Department for the History and Philosophy
of Life and Health Sciences at the Medical Faculty, University Louis Pasteur, Strasbourg.
For his activities to the Public Health, Robert Heitz received the French Ordre National du Mérite. JPW.
(Extracted from Wayenborgh: International Biography and Bibliography of Ophthalmologists, Ostend 2001).
The Book:
The History of Contact Lenses is the latest volume of Julius Hirschberg´s History of Ophthalmology. Like the other volumes of this series, it is printed on a heavy deluxe enameled art paper, bound by hand in marine blue linen with gold embossed title on the spine and book plate.
The book, in-4to format (small folio), is presented in a protective printed jacket.
This first volume of 370 pages also contains 48 biographies of the important personalities, 207 bibliographical references (all checked!), 117 illustrations, 6 tables and 16 original text transcriptions.
Price & orders
Until Volume 2 is printed, subscribers will enjoy a reduced price of only € 90 (+/- 98 USD) for this volume and also the same reduced price for the remaining two parts. Later, after publication of the complete work, the price will rise to € 130 (+/- 145 USD) per volume.
Postage is not included.
Postage:
Postage within the European Union is € 14.—
Postage Worldwide is € 25.—
Airmail upon request
Orders:
Orders by fax: ++32.59.703.646
By eMail: order@schmidtbooks.com
By mail:
G. Schmidt
Van Iseghem Laan 18/27
B-8400 OOSTENDE (Belgium)
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