[Ophthalmology in the 18th century: the "oculist seculum" in Berlin]

At least 15 oculists were known in Berlin in the eighteenth century, beginning with Johann Andreas Eisenbarth, who visited the Prussian royal residence five times. From 1725 on, four oculists resided in Berlin for up to 33 years. Since 1740, lectures on ophthalmology had been given here as part of the surgery curriculum at Berlin Collegium Medico-Chirurgicum by Simon Pallas and, as of 1769, by Joachim Friedrich Henckel. Both of them taught the traditional method of couching the cataracts, which they also treated themselves. Christian Ludwig Mursinna first used the cataract-extraction method by Daviel at the Collegium Medico-Chirurgicum when he was appointed Professor of Surgery in 1787. The oculists who visited Berlin had demonstrated this new surgical method at least 15 years earlier. The very first cataract extraction in Berlin seems to have been done by the French military surgeon Taverne in 1755. There were two charlatans among the oculists: John Taylor, who was expelled from Berlin and Prussia in 1750, because Frederik II had found him to be an English spy. The same king appointed the other charlatan, Joseph Hillmer from Vienna, a Professor of Ophthalmiatrics at the Collegium Medico-Chirurgicum, in 1748. Hillmer's charlatanism was proven by the Medical Chancellery at Petersburg when he visited Russia in 1751. The Director of the Russian Medical Supervising Board, Herman Kaau Boerhaave, documented this affair in a book, which is the first printed source of Russian medical language. Hillmer was expelled from Russia. He had never given lectures in ophthalmiatrics in Berlin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)