The history of ophthalmology* begins with the development of the culture which started during the Bronze age in the rich alluvial valleys of the rivers Euphrates-Tigris, and Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow River. Recovered documents of the Sumerians of Mesopotamia reveal that medicine was practiced as far back as 3000 B. C. The Sumerians were replaced by the Semitic dynasty of Babylon around 2000 B. C. and we possess records of their anatomical nomenclature and documentation that ophthalmology was practised by craftsmen. A most significant document is the legal code of Hammurabi, sixth King of the first dynasty of Babylon, dated by radio-carbon methods to 1800 B. C., that summarizes the old :Sumerian laws dating back to 3000 B. C. that regulate the practice of ophthalmic surgery.
A well to do free man having a successful eye operation could be charged 10 shekels of silver. This represented approximately the total annual wage of a mechanic of that era. The fee for the same on a poor man was 5 shekels and on a slave 2 shekels. In that era the fee allowed the ophthalmic surgeon was sizeable Delivered as the first annual Clement J. Smith Lecture at the Smith Kettlewell Eye Research Foundation and Department of Visual Sciences, University of the Pacific. * Vol. II, 1961 edition of DUKE ELDER p. 3 tO 35 contains a concise well referenced historical treatise on the early history of ophthalmology. From this source such a large portion of this paper dealing with the history through the fifteenth century was obtained that it is impossible to reference each item.