Photo by David Friend Productions, San Diego, California
DR. MAURICE PERRIN' S ARTIFICIAL EYE by GIROUX, OPTIQUE MEDICALE
15-031. French, ca 1870, with trade label in the lid for "Giroux, Optique Medicale, Paris." A hollow brass ball, representing the eye, is mounted on a vertically adjustable stand with a heavy brass base. This phantom eye can turn through 360 degrees and can nod up and down. All three original lenses are included in the set, with dioptric powers corresponding to a hypermetropic, an astigmatic, and an emmetropic eye, and engraved H, A, and E on their frames. There is a shutter at the back of the ball, in which 1 of 12 normal or pathlogical representations of the posterior part of the eye can be placed, each painted on a concave copper disk. A projection screen can be fitted to an arm attached to the stand. Perrin notes that this screen is intended to allow a beginner to see the movement of the ray of light through the lens. This unusual demonstration apparatus is in very good overall condition, in its original plush-lined leather covered case. See page 263 in Tonkelaar's "Nineteenth-century ophthalmological instruments in the Netherlands" for photos and descriptions of two similar, but incomplete, sets.
