Cataract surgery was practiced by many ancient cultures.
One surgical practice was called #couching, as depicted in these images.
This surgery physically displaces the lens by pushing it out of the line of vision.
Another surgical practice is called #needling,
which breaks the lens into smaller pieces.
Neither of these surgeries left patients with perfect vision,
but they avoided total blindness.
Both needling and couching were still being performed during the Renaissance era.
In 1583, #Georg #Bartisch (1535-1606) wrote about couching and illustrated the procedure.
Georg Bartisch was a surgeon who limited his practice to ophthalmology and hernia repair.
His book, Ophthalmodouleia: das ist Augendienst (Ophthalmology: That Is the Service of the Eyes), was the first ophthalmic text written in vernacular German.
It was also the first extensively illustrated book for any surgical specialty.
It is an astonishing record of the practice of ophthalmology during the Renaissance period.
Bartisch had much to say about how to fashion a cataract needle and perform couching.
He also took pains to describe where to perform the surgery.
He warned patients away from itinerate surgeons at the marketplace.
Instead, he suggested surgery should take place inside a "light chamber in which the patient shall have his bed and covers; so that he need not go far.
The nearer the bed, the better it is."
Sound advice in an age before anesthesia.
