Author: Jenny Benjamin, Director, Truhlsen - Marmor Museum of the Eye® & The Stanley M. Truhlsen, MD Director of Ophthalmic Heritage
The Truhlsen-Marmor Museum of the Eye® has an astonishing collection of over 38,000 objects, divided into twelve categories. Recently, the museum has received a good deal of archival material that I am eager to share with you.
Archival material includes photographs, film, audio recordings, letters, and corporate records. The museum has used this material in exhibits, most recently in “Remarkable Women: American Women in Ophthalmology,” which you can view online. You can also explore the oral history collection on the museum’s website.
Recently, the museum’s archive acquired a collection from the Kansas City Society of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology (KCSOO). The society had saved corporate records and publications since its beginning in 1908. It is an important trove of information about the interests and concerns of early 20th century ophthalmologists. One member of KCSOO was Dr. Hal Foster, who founded the Western Ophthalmological, Otological, Laryngological and Rhinological Association in 1896 — the precursor of today’s American Academy of Ophthalmology, which is the museum’s parent organization. Through Dr. Foster, KCSOO had a 1945 audio recording of why and how the Academy was founded, as well as an original meeting program. The Museum of the Eye® is honored to be the new caretaker for these vital pieces of American medical history.
Above: Two pages from the 1896 meeting program of the Western Ophthalmological, Otological, Laryngological and Rhinological Association
A second new acquisition comes from an individual who had not known about the museum until he heard an advertisement on the radio! Dr. Harold Novotny is best known in ophthalmology circles for his work with Dr. David Alvis; together, they discovered fluorescein angiography. He is currently a retired psychiatrist, living in the San Francisco Bay Area. When he heard our ad, he was determined to visit the museum devoted to ophthalmology that was right in his back yard. He was surprised and delighted to see his name listed on our walls, within the retina history timeline. Once he saw our exhibits, he promised to return with items that he had saved since 1960. The resulting collection is an astonishing number of photographs, as well as Kodak filters and fluorescein ampules used in the original study.
Above: Harold R. Novotny, MD, pointing to his name on the museum’s retina timeline.
Offers for donation to the museum’s collection come in frequently. It is the job of our Acquisitions Subcommittee, chaired by Dr. Joseph Nezgoda, to review these items and help set a course for the museum’s collection. If you have items you wish to offer the museum for donation, please send pictures and a description to museum@aao.org.