Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 824.5

WILLIAM PORTERFIELD (1695-1771) A treatise on the eye, the manner and phaenomena of vision Printed for A. Miller at London, and for G. Hamilton and J. Balfour 1759 1st edition. 2 v. fold. plates. 21 cm.

Porterfield was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, received his M.D. in 1717 at Rheims and by 1721 was practicing in Edinburgh; he was made a professor at the University of Edinburgh in 1724 but apparently never taught. Porterfield devoted himself chiefly to research on the physiology of vision, reporting his experiments and observations in this book. Porterfield’s Treatise was carefully read by all of the subsequent great contributors to ophthalmology and visual science for more than a century after its publication. One of the most erudite of eighteenth century medical authors, Porterfield cited and quoted widely from both the ‘old’ and ‘modern’ authors of his day. The book’s greatest strength, however, lay in its numerous original experiments and observations about visual physiology. Among the many who stressed the usefulness of this work, with regard to their own ideas, were Thomas Young and Herman Helmholtz.

See Related Record(s): 1885.9 1886 1886.1 1887 1888

Cited references: Wellcome IV p. 421; Garrison & Morton 1484.2

John Martin M.D. Endowment