Eye Surgery, 600 BC – An ancient touch on the most delicate organ

Historian Peter James and archaeologist Nick Thorpe wrote, “One of the most delicate parts of the body on which a surgeon can operate is the eye.” Yet ophthalmic (eye-related) surgery was one of the most advanced areas of medicine in the ancient world. A common cause of near or total blindness is a cataract, a clouding that develops in the eye's crystalline lens.

Cataract surgery was known to the Indian physician Sushruta (around 600 BC), who described in the Sushruta Samhita (an ancient Sanskrit text on medicine and surgery) an operation in which a physician used a curved needle to actually push the lens toward the eye and pushed the lens out of the eye.

Although the eye could no longer focus properly, this operation could be life-changing for people whose very cloudy lens blocked almost all light. After the procedure, the physician would dip the eye in warm butter and bandage it. This basic approach to cataract surgery may have been used centuries earlier in Babylon. Today, the procedure generally involves removing the lens and replacing it with an artificial lens.

Ophthalmology, the branch of medicine concerned with eye anatomy and function, was a very active area of interest in medieval Islamic medicine, with many specialists, including Ammar ibn Ali of Mosul (around AD 1000), who used a syringe and suction to remove cataracts. These include Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen), who discussed eye anatomy and optics in the Book of Optics (1021); Ibn al-Nafis, author of the Polished Book on Experimental Ophthalmology, who wrote an extensive textbook on ophthalmology; and Ali ibn Isa, author of the famous ophthalmology textbook The Eye Physician's Notebook. During the medieval Islamic period, ophthalmologists (eye doctors) generally had to obtain a license to practice.

German ophthalmologist Julius Hirschberg wrote: “Between AD 800-1300, the Islamic World produced at least 60 famous eye specialists, textbook authors and producers of monographs in ophthalmology. Meanwhile, an eye doctor was unheard of in Europe before the 12th century."

Description of the article image: An illustration from Anatomy of the Eye, an Arabic manuscript by El-Mutadibih (around AD 1200).

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Ali ibn Isa (940–1010), Ibn al-Haytham (965–1039), Ibn al-Nefis (1213–1288), Julius Hirschberg (1843–1925)

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