Adolf Eugen Fick
(1852-1937) was born in
Marburg, Germany, son of Ludwig Fick Professor of Anatomy.He
volunteered for military service in the Franco-Prussian war then studied
medicine and ophthalmology gaining his doctorate in 1875.Fick had unsuccessfully tried to secure a position at the University of
Cordoba, Argentina but instead during 1879 he emigrated to
South Africa
to help his TB.He registered as a
physician, surgeon and obstetrician and settled in
Richmond
in the
Karroo
where he opened a general medical practice.Fick revisited
Germany
in 1886 and married Marie Wislicenus, the couple moving to
Zurich
the same year.Here he practised as
an ophthalmologist, conducting investigations into contact lenses.His findings were submitted in September 1887 and published as 'Eine
Contactbrille' in Archiv Fur
Augen Heilkinde for March 1888.
Fick
had glass lenses blown in 19, 20 and 21mm diameters after taking casts of rabbit
eyes that had worn them for 6 to 8 hours.He
continued his work by taking casts of human cadaver eyes.From this he had bicurve lenses blown and wore one in his own left eye
for 2 hours.He also tried lenses on
his colleagues at the Clinique Ophthalmologique in
Zurich.Fick also had ground glass shells
made by Abbe of Jena with a radius of 8mm in the optic zone and 15mm in the
scleral zone, calling them 'Glascornea'.He tried to use these for patients with irregular astigmatism and
proposed their use for keratoconus, aphakia and myopia. He obtained good results
in only one of six patients fitted.With
his ideas dismissed by colleagues, Fick did not pursue them further, writing in
1902 "Unfortunately I have found no cases exactly suited for the application
of such a contact glass, but the improved visual acuity in proper cases of
irregular corneal astigmatism has been surprising."
Fick
became reader in Ophthalmology and Physiology at the
University
of
Zurich
from 1887-1914.A very patriotic
German, he volunteered for military service and was commissioned to field
hospitals on various fronts.He was
captured by the French and released in 1919. Fick
died aged 84 in 1937 having survived a leg amputation following a sporting
accident.His uncle, Adolf Fick, was
the physiologist who invented tonometry.
