An Adolf Coccius (1825-1890) pattern ophthalmoscope of 1853,

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus bu… Read more

THE ALFRED SCHETT MEDICAL COLLECTION Following his retirement from the field of electrical engineering, Alfred Schett has been able to devote more and more time to the study of the instruments of ophthalmology and surgery. Aside from assembling the collection of important early ophthalmological instruments and surgical tools here offered, he has also written extensively on the subject. Following several years of intensive work with the 70-odd pieces of the ophthalmoscope collection of the Medical History Museum of the University of Zurich, he was invited to speak at the Third Congress of the European Association of Museums of History of Medical Sciences in Ingolstadt in 1986. Shortly thereafter, in 1990, the results of his researches at the Zurich museum were published, to be followed six years later by the definitive The Ophthalmascope Der Augenspiegel (Ostend: 1996-1997, included in lot 107), an exhaustive study of instruments and their makers from thirteen countries across Europe, and including the United States, and in 1999 by a catalogue of the Zurich Museum's collection of tourniquets. The books offered as lots 95-139 are from Alfred Schett's own private library, used for research of all his publications, and are notable not only for the importance of the texts (for example lot 100, F.C. Donders's On the Anomalies of Accommodation and Refraction of the Eye (London: 1864), 'a classic of physiological optics'), but also the number of works from the libraries of such eminent figures as the Nobel Prize winners Sir Charles Scott Sherrington and Walter Rudolph Hess (lots 103 and 126 respectively). The references cited in the descriptions of lots 95-139 are abbreviated as follows: C.C. Gillispie Dictionary of Scientific Biography (New York: 1981, 8 volumes), 'Dictionary of Scientific Biography'; Richard Eimas Heirs of Hippocrates (Iowa: 1990), 'Eimas Heirs'; F.H. Garrison and L.T. Morton Morton's Medical Bibliography (Aldershot and Brookfield: 1991), 'Garrison-Morton'; D.H. Hook and J.M. Norman The Haskell F. Norman Library of Science and Medicine (San Fransisco: 1991, 2 volumes), 'Norman'; H. Sallander Bibliotheca Walleriana (Stockholm: 1955, 2 volumes), 'Waller'; A Catalogue of Printed Books in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: 1962-1995, 4 volumes), 'Wellcome'. All books are sold not subject to return. OPHTHALMOSCOPES

Details

An Adolf Coccius (1825-1890) pattern ophthalmoscope of 1853,
with ebony handle and six corrective lenses in leatherette covered, lined case --5½in. (14cm.) long

See Colour Illustration

Special notice

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price plus buyer's premium.

More from EXCEPTIONAL SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

View All