Albert Peters

Albert Peters (1862 to 1938) was a German ophthalmologist. He was born on 19 September 1862 in Meggen in Westphalia, the son of Richard Peters, a director of the Steinhauser Huette and chairman of the Association of German Engineers. He studied medicine at Bonn, Tuebingen and Berlin, took his doctorate at Bonn in 1885 and became first assistant at the Bonn university eye clinic under Theodor Saemisch. From 1888 to 1901 he practised as an eye specialist in Bonn, qualified as a university lecturer in 1892 and became an honorary professor in 1898. In 1901 he became full professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rostock and director of its eye clinic, succeeding Theodor Axenfeld. His research covered the anatomy of the eye, the pathology and treatment of diseases of the conjunctiva, and the study of lamellar cataract, and he published more than 100 works, among them a 1909 book on congenital faults and diseases of the eye and a 1935 monograph on trachoma. The severe congenital malformation of the eye called Peters anomaly is named after him. He served as dean of the medical faculty twice and as rector of the university in 1915 and 1916. He was removed from his duties in March 1933 because his wife was of Jewish descent and retired that April. He died in Rostock on 12 May 1938.