Johann Friedrich Horner

Johann Friedrich Horner (1831 to 1886) was a Swiss ophthalmologist based at the University of Zurich. Born in Zurich, he received his medical degree there in 1854 and continued his studies in Vienna, where he learned ophthalmoscopy from Eduard Jaeger von Jaxtthal, and in Berlin, where he assisted Albrecht von Graefe and decided to become an ophthalmologist. He returned to Zurich in 1856 and opened his own eye clinic, named Hottinghof. He became a full professor of ophthalmology in 1873, and after his death in 1886 his chair passed to Otto Haab. Horner described the disorder of the sympathetic nervous system now called Horner syndrome in 1869, and his name is also attached to Horner muscle, the lacrimal part of the orbicularis oculi, and, with Alexios Trantas, to the Horner-Trantas spots of the conjunctiva. He wrote many articles on ophthalmic medicine.