12. SEPTEMBER 1879: HIRSCHBERG USES HIS ELECTRIC HAND MAGNET TO EXTRACT A FOREIGN BODY FROM A HUMAN EYE FOR THE FIRST TIME

97th DOG Annual Meeting 1999

V283
12. SEPTEMBER 1879: HIRSCHBERG USES HIS ELECTRIC HAND MAGNET TO EXTRACT A FOREIGN BODY FROM A HUMAN EYE FOR THE FIRST TIME

H. Remky

On 15 October 1879, Hirschberg reported to the Berlin Medical Society on an "rare surgical case". In order to extract a ophthalmoscopically visible foreign body in the vitreous he opened the sclera and introduced the beakshaped end of the magnet. At the second ettempt a ringing sound was heard; the foreign body followed the magnet. Postoperative recovery was free of complications. The detailed medical records include a drawing of the fundus findings (extensive scarring of the choroid and retina with corresponding defect of the viusal field). Hirschberg made no claim to be the first. He mentions that McKeown in Belfast had opened the sclera to extract a foreign body using an permanent magnet in 1874, and that the Berlin ophthalmologist Paul Heinrich Brecht had constructed an electric hand-held magnet prior to 1875, that Mc Hardy in London had used an electric hand magnet to pull a foreign body from the anterior surface of the lens into the anterior chamber before removing it. After an unsuccsessful extraction attempt using the instrument constructed by Brecht, Hirschberg began designing his own clinically practicable hand electric magnet in 1875. This was put in the market after years of animal trials and used all over the world.

Augenklinik Remky, Arabellastr. 5, D-81925 München

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