Historical ophthalmic study of William Shakespeare
British Journal of Ophthalmology only rarely publishes historical review articles. Thus, we appreciate the unusual, recent historical publication in the journal, which presents the negative results of the study concerning the eye disorders of Jane Austen.1 The article demonstrates that she only suffered a mild ocular surface disorder, probably conjunctivitis, which did not significantly impact on her visual performance for writing. The author nicely shows that she did not spare much attention to the eye disorders in her writings.

We would like to point out that there are numerous examples of blind or severely visually impaired famous writers, including Homer,2 Jorge Luis Borges,3 John Milton,4 Aldous Huxley5 or James Joyce.6 7 However, we agree with British Journal of Ophthalmology editors that it is much more challenging to present the ‘historical ophthalmic studies’ of…

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