German ophthalmologists

Hermann Pagenstecher (September 16, 1844 – December 31, 1932) was a German ophthalmologist born in Langenschwalbach.
In 1867 he obtained his doctorate from the University of Würzburg, and shortly afterwards was an assistant at the internal medicine clinic in Greifswald (1867-68). Later he studied with ophthalmologist Albrecht von Graefe (1828-1870) in Berlin, then subsequently took an extended scientific trip to London, Edinburgh and Paris.
After returning to Germany, he worked with his older brother, Alexander Pagenstecher (1828-1879), at the latter's eye clinic in Wiesbaden. After the untimely death of his brother in 1879, he took charge of the Wiesbaden eye clinic. In 1890 he became a professor of ophthalmology.
On May 7, 1899 he visited Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle to examine her eyesight. In her private journal she wrote:

"Professor Pagenstecher, the famous German occulist, who is staying at Cumberland Lodge. He said he found my eyes no worse, in fact rather better, which is a great encouragement."Pagenstecher is remembered for advancing his brother's pioneer work with intracapsular cataract extraction, of which he described in the monograph Die Operation des grauen Stars in geschlossener Kapsel. With Carl Genth (1844-1904), he was co-author of Atlas der pathologischen Anatomie des Augapfels (Atlas of the Pathological Anatomy of the Eyeball), a book that was later translated into English by neurologist William Richard Gowers (1845-1915).

Eduard Raehlmann (19 March 1848, Ibbenbüren – 1 September 1917, Weimar) was a German ophthalmologist.
He studied medicine at the Universities of Würzburg and Halle, obtaining his doctorate at the latter institution in 1872. In 1875, he received his habilitation at the University of Strassburg, and in 1879 succeeded Georg von Oettingen as professor of ophthalmology at the University of Dorpat. After 1900, he worked as a private scholar in Weimar.His primary work dealt with anatomical and pathological investigations of the cornea, as well as studies involving amyloid degeneration of conjunctiva and research of retinal detachment. In the Baltic states, he was at the forefront in the fight against trachoma. At Weimar, he conducted research of color perception and color photography.

August Müller (1864 – 1949), born in Mönchengladbach, was a medical student at the University of Kiel, Germany, and a pioneer in the manufacture of contact lenses. In 1889, he presented at the university his doctoral thesis titled Eyeglasses and corneal lenses in which he described his efforts to grind scleral lenses from blown glass. Refinements in his process led him to be able to correct his own severe -14 dioptre myopia to within 0.50 D.Müller's compatriot Adolf Fick had published his work on contact lenses earlier in 1887, but his lenses were heavy and could only be worn for short periods. Müller's lenses were lighter and shaped to match the curved contour of the cornea. He suggested that the lens would remain in place on the cornea due to capillary action lubricated by the tear film.
Müller called his development Hornhautlinsen or 'corneal lenses'. His efforts to develop a new corrective lens were ultimately unsuccessful, since a patient could only tolerate the lens bearing down heavily on the sclera for half an hour, less than those of Fick. Moreover, it had to be inserted underwater to prevent trapping air bubbles, and cocaine administered to anaesthetise the eye, but he did however lay the groundwork for later researchers and his ideas and recommendations on fit, tear flow and rounded edges still form the basis for contact lens fitting today.In 1932, Müller donated three lenses to the German Museum in Munich. These were the same lenses that he had discussed in his thesis.

Julius von Michel (5 July 1843 – 29 September 1911) was a German ophthalmologist born in Frankenthal.
He studied at the Universities of Würzburg and Zurich, and in 1866 served as a military physician in the Austro-Prussian War. From 1868 to 1870 he was an assistant to Johann Friedrich Horner (1831–1886) at the University Eye Clinic in Zurich. During the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), he again served as a military doctor, and afterwards worked with Gustav Schwalbe (1844–1916) at Carl Ludwig's Physiological Institute in Leipzig.
In 1872 he earned his habilitation in Leipzig, and subsequently became an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Erlangen, where in 1874 he gained a full professorship. In 1879 he was named successor to Robert von Welz at the ophthalmology clinic in Würzburg, and later on, he was a replacement for Karl Ernst Theodor Schweigger at the University of Berlin (1900).
Michel is remembered for work involving tuberculosis of the eye, and his pioneer research of central retinal vein occlusion.Among his written efforts are Lehrbuch der Augenheilkunde (Textbook of ophthalmology, 1890) and Klinischer Leitfaden der Augenheilkunde (Guide to clinical ophthalmology). With Hermann Kuhnt (1850–1925), he founded the journal Zeitschrift für Augenheilkunde.

Otto Lowenstein (7 May 1889 – 25 March 1965) was a German-American neuropsychiatrist who was a native of Osnabrück.
He grew up in Preußisch Oldendorf, the son of Julius Lowenstein, a merchant, and Henriette Grunewald, into a Jewish family, and, when he was 19, began to study mathematics and philosophy at the University of Göttingen, before switching to medicine in another university.In 1914 he received his medical degree from the University of Bonn, and following service as a military physician during World War I, he returned to Bonn as a neuropsychiatric assistant to Alexander Westphal. While at Bonn, he was involved in the fields of pediatric psychiatry and experimental psychology. He pursued funding from the Government of Westphalia, then developed and opened the first children's psychiatric hospital in the world. He became Chief of Staff at this new Neuropsychiatric Hospital of Bonn University (1920–1926). He became Chief Neuropsychiatrist and Director of the State Hospital for Nervous and Mental Diseases and founded the pioneering Neuropsychiatric Hospital for children, serving as its head from 1926 to 1933. This hospital continues to operate to this day and is believed to be the first specialized hospital of its kind in the world. He was the Director of the Institute for Heredity in Neurology and Psychiatry, (Institut Fuer Neurologisch–Psychiatrische Erbforschung) from 1926 to 1933. Together with his wife, Dr Marta (Grunewald) Lowenstein, he conducted hundreds of interviews to develop family histories of neurological illnesses. While in Germany he also began early research into pupillography as a means to detect and diagnose mental and neurological disorders including engineering the first machines and methodologies to assist in the study of the eye as a window to the brain.
In 1933, because of his Jewish ethnicity, he relocated to Switzerland in order to escape Nazi persecution (led by a former army colleague who was envious of his work), working as a neuropsychiatrist at the Clinique La Métairie in Nyon. He was a member of the faculty of the University of Geneva, Department of Ophthalmology, and Director of the Pupillographic Laboratory from 1935 to 1939. Under his leadership, the laboratory and the equipment pioneered there were invented and used in his researching the pupil. In 1939 he emigrated to New York City, where he was associated with New York University and later Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. In New York, he continued neuro-ophthalmological research with his research assistant Irene Loewenfeld. As he was preparing final edits to a major compendium of his life work specializing on the pupil, he was taken ill with pancreatic cancer. His work was entrusted to Dr Loewenfeld who had received her Ph.D. From the University of Bonn under Dr Lowenstein's mentorship. The work was ultimately published in the 1990s and contains his research in two volumes.He is remembered for his studies involving motion, size and functionality of the eye's pupil from a neuropsychiatric standpoint. In Germany and America, he created laboratories containing specialized equipment for research of the eye's pupil. He was particularly interested in the status of an individual's pupil during specific emotional and psychological states, as well as the condition of the pupil during periods of fatigue and alertness.
In 1957, he built an "electronic pupillograph" that incorporated infrared technology. This device was used to accurately measure and analyze the pupils' diameter, and was a forerunner to more sophisticated pupillographic instruments that were developed in later years. Lowenstein's pioneer experiments and numerous publications on pupillary topics were a major factor in bringing pupillography into American neuro-ophthalmological medicine.
Recently, a psychiatric clinic for children called Das Professor Otto Löwenstein Haus was founded at the University of Bonn in Lowenstein's honor.
He was survived by his wife Marta who died later in the same year and by his two daughters, Anne Elizabeth Löwenstein Perls of Pacific Palisades, California, and Mary Dorothy Theresa Löwenstein Rowe (aka Marieli Rowe) of Madison, Wisconsin.

Bernhard Kayser (6 August 1869, in Bremen – 11 May 1954, in Stuttgart) was a German ophthalmologist.
He studied at Tübingen and Berlin, receiving his doctorate from the University of Berlin in 1893. Afterwards, he worked as an intern in Tübingen and as an assistant physician in Freiburg im Breisgau. He was then employed as a ship's physician by the North German Lloyd Shipping Company and spent 2½ years in Brazil as a general practitioner. He later worked as a physician in Brandenburg and Bremen, during which time, he developed an interest in ophthalmology. In 1903 he became a specialist in ophthalmology and relocated to Stuttgart, where he spent the remainder of his life. For many years he was editor of the essay section of the Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde.Kayser-Fleischer rings are named after him and Bruno Fleischer. Kayser described the condition in a 1902 paper titled Über einen Fall von angeborener grünlicher Verfärbung des Cornea.

Joseph Igersheimer(1879–1965) was a German born ophthalmologist known for his work on arsphenamine for the treatment of syphilis. A Jew, after escaping the Nazis, While in forced exile from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1939, Joseph Igersheimer was the architect of modern ophthalmology in Turkey. Earlier he was a pioneer in addressing the impact of syphilis on eyesight. He was the first to use arsphenamine in the treatment of syphilis of the eye and the first to operate on retinal detachment by closing the holes. In 1939 he joined the faculty of Tufts University School of Medicine and became a major contributor to America's ophthalmology..

Carl von Hess (7 March 1863, in Mainz – 28 June 1923, in Possenhofen) was a German ophthalmologist known for his work in ocular physiology.
He studied medicine at the universities of Heidelberg, Bonn and Strasbourg, then traveled to Prague, where he worked with ophthalmologist Hubert Sattler and physiologist Ewald Hering. In 1891 he obtained his habilitation from the University of Leipzig, and later on, he held professorships at the universities of Marburg (from 1896), Würzburg (from 1900) and Munich (from 1912).He made significant contributions in his studies of refraction and accommodation of the eye. He also conducted research on color vision in the various retinal zones, on the various forms of color blindness, of simultaneous contrast, on afterimages of moving objects and of light-dark adaptation. In addition, he performed comparative physiological studies on light sense and color vision involving animals, in invertebrates as well as vertebrates. Along with Paul Römer, he made the discovery that trachoma is transmissible to monkeys.His name is associated with the "Hess afterimage", defined as a positive afterimage that occurs third in the series of afterimages that are the result of exposure to a brief light stimulus (sequentially, the first afterimage is referred to as a "Hering afterimage", the second as a "Purkinje afterimage"). The Hess afterimage is defined as a physiological illusion. There are also several surgical instruments that are named after him.