Insight: R. Townley Paton and the World's First Eye Bank

by David Paton, Tom Clavin (Editor), Phil Keith (Design)

An annotated biography of Dr. R. Townley Paton, MD; founder of the world's first eye-bank. Starting with a lively history of the Paton family and its origins, the book then delves into the fascinating career of one of the world's most renowned eye surgeons and his quest to create the world's first viable eye bank.

336 pages, Paperback

Published June 9, 2016

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Reviews

[Ann Greyson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Richard Townley Paton was the father of modern eye banking, and this book paints a vivid portrait of the early years of The Eye-Bank and the world in which a young David Paton grew up. Paton collaborated with my cousin Aida de Acosta y Hernandez de Alba (1884-1962), the first woman with wings to pilot a powered aircraft of any sort at just 19 years old over the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, France in 1903, while the inventor Alberto Santos-Dumont chased her on a bicycle (some six months before the Wright brothers took off from Kitty Hawk). This biography, Insight: R. Townley Paton and the World's First Eye Bank, is dedicated to the memory of Aida de Acosta, the chief fundraiser who raised half a million dollars to establish the Wilmer Eye Institute for the delivery of state-of-the-art eye care, (named for eminent eye surgeon William Holland Wilmer), at Johns Hopkins Hospital on Wolfe Street in Baltimore, Maryland in 1925. Then in 1945, Aida founded The Eye-Bank for Sight Restoration, the first eye-bank for persons wishing to donate their eyes after death, dedicated to collecting, preserving, and distributing corneal tissue for transplantation, located at 210 E. 64 Street, New York, New York.

From 2006-2007, my mother Meaghan Regina Blanco D’Otazzo’s doctor of ophthalmology was Sameer I. Ahmad, a Glaucoma surgeon and specialist who at that time was on the full-time faculty as an Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. I took Meaghan to three appointments at the Wilmer Eye Institute, a place she was proud to visit and tour me around, showing off her pride to be related to Aida de Acosta whose energy and determination helped to make the Wilmer Eye Institute a reality.

“It is wonderful to see … it is also wonderful to know that you have helped others to see.” Aida de Acosta

This book is a rewarding and informative read which goes beyond dry historical facts of chronicling a medical milestone by infusing personality and context into Paton’s motivations for tackling blindness at a structural level. David Paton, a renowned ophthalmologist in his own right, provides an engaging account of his father as a revolutionary figure in ophthalmology with a dedication for restoring sight to people across the world.