1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gräfe, Albrecht von

GRÄFE, ALBRECHT VON (1828–1870), German oculist, son of Karl Ferdinand von Gräfe, was born at Berlin on the 22nd of May 1828. At an early age he manifested a preference for the study of mathematics, but this was gradually superseded by an interest in natural science, which led him ultimately to the study of medicine. After prosecuting his studies at Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Paris, London, Dublin and Edinburgh, and devoting special attention to ophthalmology he, in 1850, began practice as an oculist in Berlin, where he founded a private institution for the treatment of the eyes, which became the model of many similar ones in Germany and Switzerland. In 1853 he was appointed teacher of ophthalmology in Berlin university; in 1858 he became extraordinary professor, and in 1866 ordinary professor. Gräfe contributed largely to the progress of the science of ophthalmology, especially by the establishment in 1855 of his Archiv für Ophthalmologie, in which he had Ferdinand Arlt (1812–1887) and F. C. Donders (1818–1889) as collaborators. Perhaps his two most important discoveries were his method of treating glaucoma and his new operation for cataract. He was also regarded as an authority in diseases of the nerves and brain. He died at Berlin on the 20th of July 1870.

See Ein Wort der Erinnerung an Albrecht von Gräfe (Halle, 1870) by his cousin, Alfred Gräfe (1830–1899), also a distinguished ophthalmologist, and the author of Das Sehen der Schielenden (Wiesbaden, 1897); and E. Michaelis, Albrecht von Gräfe. Sein Leben und Wirken (Berlin, 1877).