Dr. William Briggs: ophthalmic physician at St. Thomas' Hospital, London

William Briggs, MD, established himself as one of the first ophthalmic physicians, whom today we would call a neuro-ophthalmologist, to practice in the United Kingdom. After graduating with an MD from Cambridge in 1677, and while a Fellow of Corpus Christi College, he carried out original studies in visual anatomy and physiology. He described and named the optic papilla and the retinal nerve fibers in his book Ophthalmographia, published in 1676. He published his New Theory of Vision in 1682. While at Cambridge, he was a contemporary and a friend of Isaac Newton, with whom Briggs worked but who, in matters of visual anatomy and physiology, came to reach different conclusions from Briggs. In 1683, Briggs came to London to practice as a physician at St. Thomas' Hospital, where he established a considerable reputation as an ophthalmologist. For political reasons he was forced to resign from the Hospital prematurely.