The History of Glaucoma, the latest in the Hirschberg series of the history of ophthalmology, covers the twists, turns, and paradigm-shifts in the glaucoma concept over the past two millennia. Previously, scholars were not able to agree on how the term glaucoma, which related in antiquity to the color of a diseased eye, ended up describing an excavated optic neuropathy which has nothing to do with color. The volume begins in the ancient world, and proceeds all the way to the modern era of optical coherence tomography, minimally invasive surgery, and anti-VEGF agents. Ophthalmic historians and glaucoma specialists from the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America have contributed their scholarship and recollections to this volume, which includes photographs from private collections, information from unpublished documents, and new translations from Latin, Arabic, French, German, and Spanish. The work of masters such as Julius Hirschberg and Max Meyerhof is supplemented by the latest scholarship, which has benefited from the explosion in digitally-accessible historical documents. This new scholarship has upended many deeply rooted beliefs about ophthalmology history. Most important, the volume relates the personal stories of eye surgeons and patients, to bring the past to life. The History of Glaucoma is a must-have for anyone interested in medical history.

Synesthesia is a fascinating phenomenon which has captured the imagination of scientists and artists alike. This title brings together a broad body of knowledge about this condition into one definitive state-of-the-art handbook.

When the eyeball is indented in total darkness, within less than 200 mil liseconds an oval or quarter-moon shaped spot of light is perceived in the part of the visual field corresponding to the indented region of the retina. In the seconds following, this phosphene extends across the whole visual field and alters in structure during further eyeball indentation. It is then seen as irregular large bright spots of light, finely structured moving light grains ('light nebula') and stationary bright stars. Regular geometrical patterns appear only when both eyes are indented simultaneously [1]. When the eyeball deformation is released, part of the retina again lights up for another one or two seconds and curved light lines are seen following the course of the larger retinal vessels (Fig. 1). In the following we will review the history of this phenomenon, which played an important role during the first 2200 years of vision theories and in the development of models to explain normal vision. 2. Pre-Socratic philosophers, Plato and Aristotle Alcmaeon of Croton (6-5th century B. C. ), who was a member of the Pythagoraean sect and one of the founders of Greek medicine, was the first to describe mechanical deformation of the eyeball leading to light sensa tions. According to Aristotle's pupil Theophrast of Eresos, Alcmaeon report ed that 'the eye obviously has fire within,for when the eye is struckfireflashes out' [2, p. 88].

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, this New York Times bestseller is “an extraordinary achievement” (The New Yorker)—a magnificent, profoundly humane “biography” of cancer—from its first documented appearances thousands of years ago through the epic battles in the twentieth century to cure, control, and conquer it to a radical new understanding of its essence. Physician, researcher, and award-winning science writer, Siddhartha Mukherjee examines cancer with a cellular biologist’s precision, a historian’s perspective, and a biographer’s passion. The result is an astonishingly lucid and eloquent chronicle of a disease humans have lived with—and perished from—for more than five thousand years. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance, but also of hubris, paternalism, and misperception. Mukherjee recounts centuries of discoveries, setbacks, victories, and deaths, told through the eyes of his predecessors and peers, training their wits against an infinitely resourceful adversary that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out “war against cancer.” The book reads like a literary thriller with cancer as the protagonist. Riveting, urgent, and surprising, The Emperor of All Maladies provides a fascinating glimpse into the future of cancer treatments. It is an illuminating book that provides hope and clarity to those seeking to demystify cancer.