Albrecht von Gräfe

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Albrecht von Gräfe

Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Albrecht von Graefe (May 22, 1828 - July 20, 1870), German oculist, son of Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe, was born at Berlin.

Memorial at the Charité Berlin by Rudolf Siemering

At an early age Albrecht von Gräfe manifested a preference for the study of mathematics, but this was gradually superseded by an interest in natural science, which led him ultimately to the study of medicine. After prosecuting his studies at Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Paris, London, Dublin and Edinburgh, and devoting special attention to ophthalmology he, in 1850, began practice as an oculist in Berlin, where he founded a private institution for the treatment of the eyes, which became the model of many similar ones in Germany and Switzerland.

In 1853 he was appointed teacher of ophthalmology at the University of Berlin; in 1858 he became extraordinary professor, and in 1866 ordinary professor. Gräfe contributed largely to the progress of the science of ophthalmology, especially by the establishment in 1855 of his Archiv für Ophthalmologie, in which he had Carl Ferdinand Ritter von Arlt (1812-1887) and FC Donders (1818-1889) as collaborators Perhaps his two most important discoveries were his method of treating glaucoma and his new operation for cataract. He was also regarded as an authority in diseases of the nerve and brain. He died at Berlin on the 20th of July 1870.

The eponymous sign "Graefe's sign" is associated with Graves-Basedow disease.

[edit] References

See Ein Wort der Erinnerung an Albrecht von Gräfe (Halle, 1870) by his cousin, Alfred Gräfe (1830-1899), also a distinguished ophthalmologist, and the author of Das Sehen der Schielenden (Wiesbaden 1897); and E Michaelis, Albrecht von Gräfe. Sein Leben und Wirken (Berlin,1877).
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.