Reflections on the 20th ESCRS Winter Meeting

[caption id="attachment_5379" align="alignnone" width="750"] David Spalton, President ESCRS[/caption]   Greece is a special place for doctors because it is where the science of medicine first started over 2,500 years ago. Hippocrates (about 400BC), the father of medicine, based his practice on observation and scientific reasoning, leading him to be able to make a prognosis. His ethics of ‘first do no harm’ are still with us and underlie modern medicine. Cataract couching has a good claim to be the oldest surgical procedure in the world and started in India sometime around 1000-600BC. It was introduced to the West by the conquests of Alexander the Great, which extended into northern India in about 300BC. He therefore did ophthalmology a great service, although his record on medical management is poor. When his partner Hephaestion died of typhoid he crucified the doctor, a reaction which might today be seen as excessive by even the most ferocious hospital administrator. Galen and Celsius recognised the value of the pupillary response to light as a favourable prognostic sign for couching, and the word cataract itself derives from the ancient Greek and Latin words for turbulent water (such as the famous cataracts of the Nile). I sometimes see patients from the Middle East in London who say they have white water in the eye (as opposed to blue water from cataract and corneal oedema). The ancient Greek concepts of vision persisted for another 1,500 years, and it wasn’t until about the year 1600 that the lens in the eye was identified as the cataractous organ. Couching persisted until Daviel introduced extracapsular extraction in 1745. In recent times Gimbel and Neuhann returned to the Greek language to describe their technique of opening the capsule ‘rhexis’ – a tear. Our Winter Meeting, now in its 20th year, was originally started to focus on the then new concept of corneal refractive surgery, but over the years the two branches of cataract and refractive surgery have gradually fused into a harmonious whole and the meeting has become increasingly relevant and popular. Our first Winter Meeting in Athens was in 1999 and attracted 600 delegates. In 2007 this increased to 701, and this week we are welcoming more than 2,000 delegates from 75 countries. I would like to thank the Hellenic Society of Intraocular Implant and Refractive Surgery (HSIOIRS) and my own Programme Committee for the tremendous amount of work they have put in. There are five symposia, free papers, posters, wetlab courses and live surgery sessions as well as the ESCRS/EuCornea Cornea Day. This is a very busy schedule, so don’t forget if you miss anything it will be available on ESCRS on Demand. We meet this week in a land of great tradition, famous too for its hospitality, and I wish you all a good conference.   Prof David Spalton is President of the ESCRS