The early history of keratoconus prior to Nottingham's landmark 1854 treatise on conical cornea: a review

Abstract

In an era of scientific method, precision of nomenclature and an electronically accessible publication record, the early history of keratoconus still remains, in parts, as complex and perplexing as the disease itself. Historically, the disease has been somewhat confusingly referred to by several different terms, including hyperkeratosis, ochlodes, conical formed cornea, cornea conica, cornée conique, sugar loaf cornea, prolapses corneae, procidentia corneae, staphyloma transparent de la cornée, staphyloma pellucidum, staphyloma corneae totale conicum pellucidum, staphyloma diaphanum, keratconus and keratoconus. In his major 1854 treatise on conical cornea, John Nottingham is widely cited as the first author to succinctly define keratoconus and its associations; however, for 150 years prior to this landmark publication, others had been slowly deciphering elements of keratoconus and distilling their knowledge in a series of publications obscured by the passage of years. Uncritical re‐writing of core information and references without their full verification has also led to confusion in the published literature in the 150 years since Nottingham's comprehensive description of keratoconus. In the light of the preceding limitations in the established literature, the authors conducted an historical survey, based on the analysis of original sources, to more fully establish the chronology of early descriptions of keratoconus prior to 1854, with particular focus on the works of Duddell, Taylor, Mauchart, Scarpa, Wardrop, Lyall, MacKenzie, Lawrence, Schmidt, von Ammon and Pickford. This review attempts to place the observations of these practitioners and others both in the context of contemporary ophthalmic practice and historical precedent.

Keratoconus: an inflammatory disorder?

“…As cited by Grzybowski and McGhee, 68 in 1859 Nottingham published a detailed description of keratoconus and various classical characteristics of it in his piece 'Practical observations on the conical cornea and on the short sight and other defects of the vision connected with it', based on the cases he had observed with a conical cornea; however, during the last 150 years a complete understanding of this disease has not been reached and its origin remains as an unsolved issue to the present time (i.e., 2014). 3,69 According to scientific evidence collected in recent decades, the condition is likely to be a multifactorial, multigenic disorder with complex inheritance patterns, probably triggered by environmental factors: a 'two-hit' hypothesis.…”

Keratoconus: current perspectives

“…In a recent review, Grzybowski and McGhee have meticulously traced observations of various authors through the 18th and 19th centuries, including what is probably the earliest written description of keratoconus by Benedict Duddell 1. John Nottingham, however, is credited with providing the first comprehensive understanding of this condition through his landmark treatise published in 1854 2.…”

Dr John Nottingham's 1854 Landmark Treatise on Conical Cornea Considered in the Context of the Current Knowledge of Keratoconus

“…1 The treatise consolidated the observations of others, much like a modern-day review article; an account of the works on keratoconus before Nottingham, their context and historic precedence, has been described in a recent review. 2 All the observations described by Nottingham were from examinations by naked eye or using a magnifying glass. Whereas Nottingham's treatise contains no illustrations, his contemporary Friedrich August von Ammon, whom Nottingham references several times, published an article in 1841 containing illustrations of "cornea conica" (Fig.…”