Carl Ferdinand von Arlt

Carl Ferdinand Ritter von Arlt (1812 to 1887) was an Austrian ophthalmologist born in Ober-Graupen, a village near Teplitz in Bohemia. He earned his doctorate in Prague in 1839 and became professor of ophthalmology in Prague from 1849 to 1856 and in Vienna from 1856 to 1883. He published a large number of books and articles on diseases of the eye and collaborated with Albrecht von Graefe and Franciscus Donders on the journal Archiv fuer Ophthalmologie. He was the first physician to provide proof that myopia is generally a consequence of excessive length of the sagittal axis of the eye. Several eponyms honor him, including Arlt's line, Arlt's operation for distichiasis, Arlt's syndrome and Arlt's triangle. His son Ferdinand Ritter von Arlt was also an ophthalmologist. He died in Vienna in 1887.