Carl Wilhelm von Zehender

Carl Wilhelm von Zehender was a German ophthalmologist born in Bremen on 21 May 1819, who died in Rostock on 19 December 1916 at the age of 97. He studied medicine at the universities of Göttingen, Jena and Kiel and received his doctorate in 1845, then studied ophthalmology in Paris as a pupil of Louis-Auguste Desmarres and continued his education in Prague, Vienna and Berlin. After working at an ophthalmic practice in Neustrelitz he became professor of ophthalmology at the University of Bern in 1862. From 1866 to 1889 he was professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rostock, serving as its rector in 1875 and 1876, and afterwards he lived in Munich until 1907. He is considered a pioneer of ophthalmic microsurgery because in 1886 he introduced a compound binocular instrument for ophthalmologic examination. He founded and from 1863 to 1899 edited the journal Klinische Monatsblätter für Augenheilkunde and helped create the Heidelberg Ophthalmological Society, a predecessor of the German Ophthalmological Society.