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The Allvar Gullstrand Story
The Swedish ophthalmologist Allvar Gullstrand was a famous person who made great contributions to the study of the eye. Born on June 5, 1862 in Landskrona, Allvar won the Nobel Prize for medicine and physiology due to his incredible discoveries on the mechanism responsible for eyesight. He also pioneered the slit lamp, reflector ophthalmoscope and other devices, which have seen extensive use in the medical field as tools for examining the eye and treating various Eyesight Disorders. He decided to pursue a career in medicine due to the influence of his father, Pehr Alfred Gullstrand, who was the city physician when Allvar Gullstrand was growing up and convinced him to reconsider his initial plan to study engineering. In 1888, he got his medical degree from Stockholm's Royal Caroline institute after completing his studies in Uppsala, Sweden, Stockholm and Vienna. A year later, he earned his PhD with his thesis on Astigmatisms, and he went on to formulate various theories about the eye, revolutionizing the field of ophthalmology.
Allvar Gullstrand was soon appointed chief physician of Stockholm Eye Clinic, becoming lecturer and clinic director at Karolinska Institute in 1894. His career as an ophthalmologist truly kicked off when he left to become a professor at the University of Uppsala, where he studied about geometric optics and the refractive properties of the eye. During this time he managed to clear up several misconceptions about the eye, such Hermann von Helmholtz's theory that the eye focused by changing the curvature of its lens. He also developed corrective lenses for patients who had recently undergone cataract-removal surgery and had their natural lenses taken out. All of his accomplishments cemented him as one of the most revolutionary figures in the field of ophthalmology, and he is in many ways the root of our modern understanding of the Visual Process of how the eye works. Allvar Gullstrand's work continued until he retired from the university in 1927, and he died of a stroke a few years afterward. The eye is one of the most interesting parts of the body. Its machinery is so intricate, allowing it to relay information to the brain in the form of patterns and colors just by sensing light. This also makes it one of the most useful organs we have. Obviously it would be incredibly difficult to get around for most of us if we couldn't see, and it's always said that you should take special care to Protect Your Eyesight; after all, since the eye is so delicate, it doesn't take much to damage it. And even the tiniest bit of damage can impair a person's vision forever. No wonder ophthalmology has gone to such great lengths to build a better understanding of the eye and how it works, with numerous people throughout history such as Albrecht von Graefe working to make it easier and safer to take care of the fragile organ. There are far too many major contributors to ophthalmology to properly list, and each of them has managed to add something different. This has helped build the field up to where it is today, with multiple scientists dedicating their lives to studying about vision.
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