William Porterfield (ca 1696 – 1771) and William Charles Wells (1757 – 1817) conducted experimental investigations on eye movements related to accommodation, binocular vision, and vertigo. Porterfield gave a correct interpretation of Scheiner's experiment and invented an optometer to measure the near and far points of distinct vision. He also demonstrated the involvement of the crystalline lens in accommodation by examining vision in an aphakic person. Wells devised an alternative means of measuring the limits of vision and noted his own deterioration of sight with age; he studied the effects of belladonna on pupil size and accommodation. Their analyses of binocular visual direction contrasted Porterfield's view that perceived location was innately determined with Wells's argument that visual direction was innate whereas visual distance was learned. Both Porterfield and Wells investigated the involvement of eye movements in binocular vision and in postrotary visual motion. Porterfield maintained that the eyes did not move following body rotation, whereas Wells, using an afterimage as stabilised retinal image, described the characteristics of postrotary nystagmus and their dependence on head orientation. Despite the neglect of Wells's work, he should be considered as laying the foundations for the study of vestibular – visual interaction, even though the function of the vestibular system was not known at that time.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AguiloniusF, 1613Opticorum Libri Sex. Philosophis juxta ac Mathematicis utiles (Antwerp: Moretus).
2.
Anon, 1817“Obituary of William Charles Wells”The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle87380.
3.
BarbaroD, 1569La Pratica della Perspettiva (Venice: Borgominieri).
4.
BellC, 1803The Anatomy of the Human Bodyvolume 3 (London: Longman, Rees, Cadell and Davies).
5.
BellC, 1823“On the motions of the eye, in illustration of the uses of the muscles and of the orbit”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London113166–186.
6.
BerkeleyG, 1709An Essay towards a New Theory of Vision (Dublin: Pepyat).
7.
BirchT, 1757The History of the Royal Society of Londonvolume 3 (London: Millar).
8.
BoringE G, 1942Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology (New York: Appleton-Century).
9.
BrewsterD, 1856The Stereoscope. Its History, Theory, and Construction (London: Murray).
10.
CantorG, 1977“Berkeley, Reid, and the mathematization of mid-eighteenth-century optics”Journal of the History of Ideas38429–448.
11.
CarmichaelL, 1926“Sir Charles Bell: A contribution to the history of physiological psychology”Psychological Review33188–217.
12.
ChanceB, 1936“William Porterfield, M.D. An almost forgotten opticophysiologist”Archives of Ophthalmology16197–207.
13.
CohenB, 1984“Erasmus Darwin's observations on rotation and vertigo”Human Neurobiology3121–128.
14.
ComrieJ D, 1932History of Scottish Medicine2nd edition (London: The Wellcome Historical Medical Museum).
15.
CroneR A, 1992“The history of stereoscopy”Documenta Ophthalmologica811–16.
16.
DarwinE, 1794Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Lifevolume 1 (London: Johnson).
17.
DarwinE, 1801Zoonomia; or, the Laws of Organic Life3rd edition (London: Johnson).
18.
DarwinR W, 1786“New experiments on the ocular spectra of light and colours”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London76313–348.
19.
DesaguliersJ T, 1719Lectures of Experimental Philosophy (London: Mears, Creake, and Sackfield).
20.
DescartesR, 1637/1902La Dioptrique, in Oeuvres de Descartes,volume 6, Eds AdamCTanneryP (Paris: Cerf) pp 81–228.
HowardI PWadeN J, 1996“Ptolemy's contributions to the geometry of binocular vision”Perception251189–1201.
39.
JamesR R, 1937“William Porterfield, M.D.”The British Journal of Ophthalmology21472–477.
40.
JurinJ, 1738“An essay on distinct and indistinct vision”, in SmithRA Compleat System of Opticks in Four Books (Cambridge: Published by the author) pp 115–171.
41.
KeplerJ, 1604Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena (Frankfurt: Marinium and Aubrii).
42.
KeplerJ, 1611Dioptrice (Augsburg: Franci).
43.
KrutaV, 1964M.-J.-P. Flourens, J.-E. Purkyne et les debuts de la physiologie de la posture et de l'équilibre (Paris: Allençonnaise).
44.
de La HireP, 1685a“Dissertation sur la conformation de l'oeil”Journal des Sçavans13335–363.
45.
de La HireP, 1685b“Dissertation sur la conformation de l'oeil”Journal des Sçavans13398–405.
46.
LenoirT, 1993“The eye as mathematician: Clinical practice, instrumentation, and Helmholtz's construction of an empiricist theory of vision”, in Hermann von Helmholtz and the Foundations of Nineteenth-Century Science Ed. CahanD (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press) pp 109–153.
47.
MalebrancheN, 1674De la Recherche de la Verité (Paris: Pralard).
48.
MullerJ, 1826Zur vergleichenden Physiologie des Gesichtssinnes des Menschen und der Thiere, nebst einen Versuch über die Bewegung der Augen und über den menschlichen Blick (Leipzig: Cnobloch).
49.
MüllerJ, 1838Handbuch der Physiologie des Menschenvolume 2 (Coblenz: Hölscher).
50.
NewtonI, 1704Opticks: or, a Treatise of the Reflections, Refractions, Inflections and Colours of Light (London: Smith and Walford).
51.
OnoH, 1981“On Wells' 1792 law of visual direction”Perception & Psychophysics30403–406.
52.
OnoHMappA, 1995“A restatement and modification of Wells – Hering's laws of visual direction”Perception24237–252.
53.
PastoreN, 1971Selective History of Theories of Visual Perception: 1650 – 1950 (New York: Oxford University Press).
54.
Pliny, 1940Natural History English translation by RackhamH (London: Heinemann).
55.
PorterfieldW, 1737“An essay concerning the motions of our eyes”Edinburgh Medical Essays and Observations3160–263.
56.
PorterfieldW, 1738“An essay concerning the motions of our eyes”Edinburgh Medical Essays and Observations4124–294.
57.
PorterfieldW, 1759aA Treatise on the Eye, the Manner and Phænomena of Visionvolume 1 (Edinburgh: Hamilton and Balfour).
58.
PorterfieldW, 1759bA Treatise on the Eye, the Manner and Phænomena of Visionvolume 2 (Edinburgh: Hamilton and Balfour).
59.
PurkinjeJ, 1820“Beyträge zur näheren Kenntniss des Schwindels aus heautognostischen Daten”Medicinische Jahrbucher des kaiserlich-königlichen öesterreichischen Staates679–125.
60.
ReidT, 1764An Inquiry into the Human Mind. On the Principles of Common Sense (Edinburgh: Millar, Kincaid & Bell).
61.
RitchieR P, 1899The Early Days of the Royall Colledge of Phisitians, Edinburgh (Edinburgh: Johnston).
62.
RohaultJ, 1671Traite de Physique (Paris: Savreux).
63.
ScheinerC, 1619Oculus, hoc est fundamentum opticum (Innsbruck: Agricola).
64.
ShastidT H, 1917“History of ophthalmology”, in The American Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Ophthalmologyvolume 11, Ed. WoodC A (Chicago, IL: Cleveland Press) pp 8524–8904.
65.
ShryockR H, 1944“The strange case of Wells' theory of natural selection”, in Studies and Essays in the History of Science and Learning offered in Homage to George Sarton Ed. MontaguM F A (New York: Schuman) pp 197–207.
66.
SmithA M, 1996Ptolemy's Theory of Visual Perception: An English Translation of the Optics with Introduction and Commentary (Philadelphia, PA: The American Philosophical Society).
67.
SmithA M, 1998“Ptolemy, Alhazen, and Kepler and the problem of optical images”Arabic Sciences and Philosophy89–44.
68.
SmithR, 1738A Compleat System of Opticks in Four Books (Cambridge: Published by the author).
69.
TurnerR S, 1994In the Eye's Mind: Vision and the Helmholtz – Hering Controversy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press).
70.
WadeN J, 1978“Sir Charles Bell on visual direction”Perception7359–362.
71.
WadeN J, 1987“On the late invention of the stereoscope”Perception16785–818.
72.
WadeN J, 1998a“Early studies of eye dominances”Laterality397–108.
73.
WadeN J, 1998bA Natural History of Vision (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
74.
WadeN J, 1998c“Light and sight since antiquity”Perception27637–670.
75.
WareJ, 1813“Observations relative to the near and distant sight of different persons”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London10331–50.
76.
WellsW C, 1792An Essay upon Single Vision with two Eyes: together with Experiments and Observations on several other Subjects in Optics (London: Cadell).
77.
WellsW C, 1794a“Reply to Dr. Darwin on vision”The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle64794–797.
78.
WellsW C, 1794b“Reply to Dr. Darwin on vision”The Gentleman's Magazine and Historical Chronicle64905–907.
79.
WellsW C, 1811“Observations and experiments on vision”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London101378–391.
80.
WellsW C, 1813“An Account of a female of the white race of mankind, part of whose skin resembles that of a negro”, in Wells W C (1818).
81.
WellsW C, 1814An Essay on Dew and Several Appearances Connected with it (London: Taylor and Hessey).
82.
WellsW C, 1818Two Essays: One upon Single Vision with Two Eyes; the Other on Dew (London: Constable).
83.
WheatstoneC, 1838“Contributions to the physiology of vision—Part the first. On some remarkable, and hitherto unobserved, phenomena of binocular vision”Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London128371–394.
