Schweigers Hand Held Perimeter 1888

A Portable Solution to Visual Field Testing

Karl Schweigger designed this hand-held perimeter, and it dates to around 1888. Schweigger, a German ophthalmologist, served as chair of ophthalmology at the Charité in Berlin for nearly three decades. He succeeded Albrecht von Graefe in that position, one of the most prestigious posts in nineteenth-century ophthalmology. This Schweigers hand held perimeter addressed a real clinical gap. Earlier perimeters required a fixed, dedicated examination setup, but Schweigger’s portable design let practitioners measure a patient’s visual field almost anywhere.

How the Instrument Measures the Visual Field

A circular scale attached at the rotation point displays the eye’s position during testing. The examiner tracks where the patient can and cannot detect a target as it moves through different positions around this scale. A vertical rod, fitted with a slanted plate, rests against the lower rim of the eye socket during examination. This placement stabilizes the head and keeps the test consistent from one position to the next, an important detail for reliable visual field measurement.

Perimetry Beyond the Examination Room

The Schweiger perimeter allowed practitioners to perform perimetry at the bedside or in other non-examining-room settings. This flexibility mattered enormously for patients who could not travel to a formal eye clinic, whether due to illness, injury, or simple distance. Portable instruments like this Schweigers hand held perimeter represented a genuine step forward in bringing diagnostic ophthalmology to the patient, rather than requiring the patient to come to specialized equipment.

A Piece of Diagnostic History

A surviving example of Schweigger’s own perimeter is held today by the Medical History Museum of the Charité in Berlin, a testament to the instrument’s historical significance. This piece offers collectors a tangible connection to the early development of clinical perimetry. Browse related instruments in our eye exam equipment collection .

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Schweigers hand held perimeter from 1888 with circular scale and vertical positioning rod