BOOK REVIEW

It must have been a dream come true for ophthalmologists worldwide, the announcement that a successful technique for treating retinal detachments had been developed.

It was 1930 and Jules Gonin had been refining his methods for the past decade. Nearly 80 years had passed since the first ophthalmoscope had allowed visualisation of the ocular fundus, but the intervening time had not brought meaningful therapeutic advances.

This began to change upon the widespread acceptance of Gonin’s method of locating and sealing retinal breaks.

The story of this remarkable development, and the vitreoretinal advances that have followed since, is elegantly told in Good News from Switzerland: A History of Retinal Reattachment Surgery (RSM Press).

Written by Peter Leaver and Richard Keeler, this book takes a graceful walk through the evolution of retinal surgery.

“The history of retinal reattachment is defined by three great inventions: the ophthalmoscope, [Gonin’s] successful operation to repair a torn retina, and a method for safely removing the vitreous gel,” reads the preface.

The text itself fills in the details, providing both the context in which each of the major developments were made and interesting background information about the surgeons who generated them. Richly illustrated with early surgical drawings and photographs of 19th Century pioneers and their equipment, Good News from Switzerland brings this history to life and is highly recommended for all those retinal surgeons whose high rates of surgical success owe a great deal to those who are described herein.

CORNEAL TOPOGRAPHY

Zooming forward to a highly technical, computerised age, the Atlas and Clinical Reference Guide for Corneal Topography (Slack) provides an efficient way to find characteristic topographic maps and practise recognising them.

“Corneal topography has become essentially a pattern recognition trade, best learned by viewing multiple images of representative patterns,” declare the authors, Ming Wang and Lance Kugler.

In order to facilitate this learning and recognition, the atlas has been divided into three sections. Section I illustrates the differences between the two major types of corneal topographers: placido-disk and elevation-based topography.

Once the reader understands these differences, (s)he is ready for Section II, which demonstrates a map-based approach, organised by the type of map. Section III takes a reverse approach by organising the maps based on the disease. The atlas is intended for the busy clinician in need of quick reference and is appropriate for anyone who uses a corneal topographer.