The Eyes Have It
The background, objectives and amazing achievements of the Dartmouth Eye Institute are described in this issue. Here in the midst of an undergraduate college a research development has attracted international attention through the successful functioning of its associated clinical division. Throughout the nearly 20 years of its history the Eye Institute has placed equal emphasis upon both clinical and research activity. Thus one branch has helped and been vital to the other. In its plans for the future—for further extension of the boundaries of knowledge about eye defects and their measurement—the staff is blessed with expert leaders and technicians both in treating patients and carrying on research.
The need for support—for endowment and to construct and equip a buildinghas become acute. It seems, to the outsider, that scientific work of the highest order of excellence and achievement, and work related to bettering the comfort and efficiency of the human eye, would surely receive the necessary support. But to date the search for new sources of benefactions has not been successful. Meanwhile, however, the Institute and the College are verymuch indebted to the generous supporters who have encouraged and financed the work in past years, and whose indispensable aid is gratefully acknowledged in the article in these pages this month.
The momentum of the Eye Institute's renown has grown steadily through the years, and rapidly within the past year or two. Requests for appointments have lately increased to such an extent that the clinical department of the Institute is swamped. Another problem of importance is the fact that the research end of the Institute's activity is best served by bringing patients to Hanover who are "tough cases." The new policy of accepting only patients who are referred to the Dartmouth Eye Institute by local medical or eye doctors is a move which should be widely understood among alumni. It promises to be helpful in many ways including the vital one of bringing the most difficult eye cases in America to the Dartmouth group. The Eye Institute has handled some 35,000 cases in the last four years alone. A great many of these could have been cared for in the patients' home locale. From now on the policy is to attract the "incurable" eye sufferers and thus implement the research end of the Institute and subsequently serve science to a maximum degree.
