The Strange Report of Cheselden's Iridotomy

he invention of iridotomy by William Cheselden in 1727 was the first intraocular op- erationaftertheancienttechniqueofcouchingforcataracts,andwasthusaturningpoint in ophthalmic history. Whereas cataract barber-surgeons entered the eye blindly with- out accurate knowledge of its anatomy or the actual mechanism of the surgery, the iri- dotomywasdoneunderdirectvisualguidance,withtrueawarenessoftheillitwassupposedtocure, and the reason for its effect. In today's spectrum of ocular diseases, it may be hard to appreciate the enormous blessing of an optical iridotomy, but at the beginning of the 18th century it was the sec- ond most frequently performed procedure for the restoration of vision to the blind.