Wolff's Anatomy of the Eye and Orbit

Rating:
Summary: Review of Wolff's Anatomy of the Eye and Orbit
Review: This book is widely regarded as the best text for studying ocular anatomy. However many students of this text find it terribly flawed.

The book is poorly written with many contradictions within itself, a prime example being the structure of iridial blood vessels.

The english is poor leading to ambiguity in many sections. The material is presented in a disjointed fashion with emphasis on presenting different and controversial research views while missing the key point at times.

The sections on microscopic anatomy are basically summarised from the text "Histology of the Human Eye" by Hogan, Alvarado and Weddel which remains a MUCH better written book. To gain a good understanding, Hogan must be read along with Wolff. Wolff manages to completely contradict Hogan in places...while this may be because Hogan is old (written in 1971) one cannot help but question whether Wolff is correct, seeing mistakes in it are so common. A large proportion of Wolff's pictures are from Hogan. It is a real shame that Hogan is out of print.

To gain an understanding of each topic it is advisable to first read the section in a smaller book such as the one by Snell and Lemp, rather than wading blindly through Wolff.

References to diagrams are often misreferenced ie they point to the wrong diagram which is extremely frustrating. A lot of space is wasted with references to authors - numbers in superscript would have shrunk the book considerably.

On the whole this reader gets the impression that the book has been written by several authors, none of whom have come to a general consensus about the material, and all of whom seem to be absent-minded professors revelling in the ambiguity they have masterfully created.

Rating:
Summary: Gross disappointment
Review: What a tremendous disappointment.
This book is generally held to be the classic eye anatomy text. Yet it is riddled with mistake after mistake. I remain unconvinced that there was any attempt in editing this text.

Wolff's draws heavily on Hogan and Alverado for its histology, indeed it is more or less a paraphrase. Yet in certain places eg the chapter on the Lens, a diagram taken from Hogan's is referenced as taken from "The HISTORY of the eye"!!!

While the headings provide a good outline of the chapter, the text itself is written in poor English, riddled with mistakes and generally unsuitable for gaining a good understanding of the anatomy of the eye.

I sure there must be other alternatives available for those interested in understanding the anatomy of the eye.