Stefani, F: Macroscopic Ocular Pathology

Today, ophthalmic pathology deals more and more with pathogenesis using highly sophisticated techniques. In recent decades, it has ex panded to such an extent that it now fills several volumes of a modern comprehensive atlas or textbook. Black and white prints of the macroscopic appearance of dissected eyes are standard in modern textbooks. Color photographs, although providing more visual infor mation and a better insight into the sometimes complex disease pro cesses of the eye, are however costly. Nevertheless, many ophthalmo logic colleagues expressed their desire to have me prepare such an atlas. It is not intended to replace one of the textbooks in this field but rather to supplement existing texts and to stimulate clinical and diagnostic thinking. Hence it should be used in conjunction with textbooks on anatomy and ocular pathology. The reader will find references on the different subjects in the excellent modern textbooks listed below. Diagnosis and treatment in ophthalmology is to a great extent based on morphologic examination. Clinical ophthalmologists have available such excellent tools as the slit-lamp, the gonioscope, and the ophthalmoscope to study and document ocular disease in vivo under high magnification. Both external eye structures and transpar ent ocular structures can be observed better in vivo than in the pathol ogy laboratory. Therefore the pathology of these is only presented in conditions in which direct visualization is normally difficult.