The distinction between what may be called the old ophthalmology and the new is one of almost unique clearness, as compared with other departments of medicine or science. Especially in medical practice the modern status has usually grown out of the older and oldest by infinitesimal increments and gradual modifications. In ophthalmology it is not so, and this fact explains why there are such profound differences of opinion as regards the claims of the new. Although both are usually practiced by the same men, they may be and often are, as distinct in origin, theory and practice as, e. g., are otology and ophthalmology.
The "old ophthalmology" was, and is, concerned with inflammatory and surgical diseases alone, remaining ignorant of and indifferent to such relations as might exist between the eye and the general system, except as regards those minor and few diseases which arise in the body and then