This House of Noble Deeds: The Mount Sinai Hospital, 1852-2002

23 Department of Ophthalmology

23 Department of Ophthalmology THE FIRST RECORDED eye operation at the Jews’ Hospital was performed in 1860. Seligman Teller, the House Physician and Surgeon, reported on A. L., a peddler, “who by the effect of a cold lost the sight of his right eye which was affected by cataract and glaucomatous disease. An operation was performed with success and the sight of his eye was fully restored.”1 In 1879, Emil Gruening (1842–1914) was appointed the first Chief of a combined Eye and Ear, Nose, and Throat (EENT) Service, the first such department by two decades in a general hospital in New York. Gruening had his early education in Europe and came to the United States at age nineteen. He settled in Hoboken, New Jersey, and made a meager living tutoring. He started medical school, but, at the outbreak of the Civil War, he volunteered for the infantry, serving in Grant’s command at several battles, and was present at Lee’s surrender at Appomattox . He finished medical school and studied in Europe with Hermann von Helmholtz, Albrecht von Graefe, and others for three years. As was common at the time, Gruening cared for patients with disease of the eyes, ears, nose, and throat. In 1882, an Eye and Ear Department was started in the Outpatient Dispensary (OPD) of Mount Sinai. In 1883, an inpatient eye and ear ward was established, separating these patients from the general medical and surgical cases. Alice B. Brill and Edward Fridenberg were appointed to the staff to help with the increasing workload. By 1895, a spectacle and eye glass service had been added in the OPD. The Great Blizzard of March 12, 1888, is still remembered, although many have forgotten its medical implications. The storm and the whiteness of the snow caused many cases of temporary vision problems, as well as many upper respiratory infections, many with mastoiditis. With his vast experience, Gruening became the first to perform radical mastoid drainage surgery in the United States.2 He also designed platinum instruments for eye surgery that could withstand high temperatures for 254 sterilization better than silver. Although aseptic surgery was introduced to Mount Sinai in the 1880s, many surgeons did not espouse the concept. Gruening, in fact, was described as holding the cataract (Graefe) knife in his mouth.3 One of the many bright lights in the early years of the Eye Service was William Wilmer, who was on the Mount Sinai House Staff from 1885 to 1887 and then became Gruening’s assistant. Wilmer subsequently moved to Baltimore, where he founded the Wilmer Eye Institute. When Gruening died in 1914, Wilmer wrote to Emil’s son, Ernest, and noted that he had no greater admiration or respect for anyone except for his own father. Ernest Gruening later became the governor of the Territory of Alaska and its first Senator when Alaska attained statehood. Percy Fridenberg was on the Aural and Ophthalmic staff for many years. His family connections were notable. Two brothers were Mount Sinai physicians; one of his sisters, Rose, was Emil Gruening’s first wife, and, after her death, another sister, Phoebe, became Gruening’s second wife. Percy Fridenberg served for many years at Mount Sinai and published extensively. A 1903 case report gave a remarkable hint of the future and also an example of Fridenberg’s prescience. The patient, a twenty-six-year-old physician, sustained a partial thickness laceration of the cornea, which, after healing, eliminated a previously known corneal astigmatism. Fridenberg wrote, “the prophetic eye may see, in the dim future, the operation of graduated superficial keratotomy for astigmatism.”4 And this was nearly a century ago. Max Talmey, one of the more colorful ophthalmologists of the era, joined the staff in 1895. As a medical student in Germany, he had been introduced to a bright and personable lad of ten to whom he gave some books on science, mathematics, and philosophy. The boy was Albert Einstein, and Talmey remained in touch with him over many years. With Einstein’s permission, Talmey published a popular version of the Theory of Relativity. He was also very involved in the synthetic languages Esperanto and Gloro, which were developed in that era. His critical comments about psychoanalysis published in the newspapers attracted considerable attention (including a supportive note from H. L. Mencken). He wrote on a variety of subjects: cataract, infantile paralysis , and international efforts to save energy. Talmey died in 1941. Carl Koller (1857–1944) achieved instantaneous world...