My first introduction to the eye came more than three decades ago when
my close friend and mentor, the late Professor Isaac C. Michaelson,
convinced me that studying the biochemistry of ocular tissues would be a
rewarding pursuit. I hastened to explain that I knew nothing about the
subject, since relatively few basic biochemical studies on ocular
tissues had appeared in the world literature. Professor Michaelson
assured me, however, that two books on eye biochemistry had already been
written. One of them, a beautiful monograph by Arlington Krause ( 1934)
of Johns Hopkins Hospital, is we II worth reading even today for its
historical perspective. The other, published 22 years later, was written
by Antoinette Pirie and Ruth van Heyningen ( 1956), whose pioneering
achievements in eye biochemistry at the Nuffield Laboratory of
Ophthalmology in Oxford, England are known throughout the eye research
community and beyond. To their credit are classical investigations on
retinal, corneal, and lens biochemistry, beginning in the 1940s and
continuing for many decades thereafter. Their important book written in
1956 on the Biochemistry of the Eye is a volume that stood out as a
landmark in this field for many years. In recent years, however, a
spectacular amount of new information has been gener- ated in ocular
biochemistry. Moreover, there is increasing specialization among
investiga- tors in either a specific field of biochemistry or a
particular ocular tissue.
