Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 402.5

RICHARD BANISTER (1570?-1626) A treatise of one hundred and thirteene diseases of the eyes Richard Banister. Theatrum Orbis Terrarum / Da Capo Press 1622 / 1971 1971 facsimile reprint. Unpaginated. 16 cm.

Richard Banister (Richarde Banisters, Rychard Bannester, Rikchard Banister) (born c 1570- 1626), was the father of British ophthalmology. He practiced in Stamford and first associated hard eyeballs with blindness in 1622, so effectively defining glaucoma. This, although mentioned by Hippocratic writings as glaucosis, essentially meant incurable cataract. His uncle was John Banister (http://www.ganfyd.org/index.php?title=Richard_Banister). Although much of [the present work] is a translation of Guillemeau [“Traite des maladies de l’oeil”], the first 112 pages are Banister’s own work, “Banister’s Breviary”. He was an itinerant but honest occultist (Garrison & Morton, p.912). This work is the first edition of the second work in English on ophthalmology (the first being Bayley). Singer notes that Banister’s work was the first to describe absolute glaucoma and the significance of the hardness of the eyeball (etc).

John Martin M.D. Endowment