The last ride of Henry II of France: orbital injury and a king's demise.

Jousting was a popular pastime for royalty in the Renaissance era. Injuries were common, and the eye was particularly at risk from the splinters of the wooden lance. On June 30, 1559, Henry II of France participated in a jousting tournament to celebrate two royal weddings. In the third match, Gabriel de Montgomery struck Henry on the right shoulder and the lance splintered, sending wooden shards into his face and right orbit. Despite being cared for by the prominent physicians Ambroise Paré and Andreas Vesalius, the king died 10 days later and was found to have a cerebral abscess. The wound was not explored immediately after the injury; nevertheless, wooden foreign bodies were discovered in the orbit at the time of autopsy. The dura had not been violated, suggesting that an infection may have traveled from the orbit into the brain. Nostradamus and Luca Guarico, the astrologer to the Medici family, had prophesied the death of Henry II of France, but he ignored their warnings and thus changed the course of history in Renaissance Europe.

Wilhelm August Gottlieb Manniske, MD (1769-1835): microscope use during removal of buried corneal body in 1792.

In 1792, a priest in Germany consulted a young doctor about a buried corneal foreign body hidden in a small, hard mass that partly covered the pupil. During removal of the foreign body, the doctor inspected the corneal incision with a microscope to confirm the suspected presence of the foreign body. This may be the first use of a microscope in eye surgery.

[Species identification of the fragment of wood found in the left eye socket bone during exhumation of general Wladyslaw Sikorski's corpse]. / Identyfikacja gatunkowa fragmentu drewna znalezionego w trakcie ekshumacji zwlok generala Wladyslawa Sikorskiego w kosci lewego oczodolu.

During the exhumation of general Wladyslaw Sikorski's corpse, a fragment of wood was found embedded in the left eye socket bone. The wood fragment was referred by the Institute of Forensic Research to the laboratory of Department of Forest and Wood Utilization, University of Agriculture in Krakow, where investigations were performed, aiming at determining the species of the wood. The fragment was cut into 20 microm thick microtome scraps of three anatomy sections: transverse, tangential and radial. The scraps were immersed in 99.8% ethyl alcohol for 24 hours and then for about 1 hour in xylene. Subsequently, they were placed between a microscope slide and a cover-glass in Canada balsam. The thus prepared scraps were then analyzed with the use of a Jenaval Carl Zeiss microscope. On the basis of microscope observations it was determined that the investigated fragment of wood belonged to Douglas-fir species (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco).

The radiology of orbital trauma: an historical overview.

Professor Roentgen presented the roentgen ray in 1895. The subsequent history of radiology is characterized not by steady, but by stepwise advancement. Each new innovation produced a forward surge followed by a period of refinement in which the new method was developed and exploited to the very limits of its diagnostic yield.