In 1874, Wood graduated from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute (present-day Lisgar Collegiate Institute).
Gallery of Casey Wood
2600 Rue College, Sherbrooke, QC J1M 1Z7, Canada
In 1877, Wood received a Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Bishop's College (present-day Bishop's University). In 1903, Wood attained a Doctor of Civil Law degree from the same educational establishment.
Gallery of Casey Wood
845 Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, Montréal, QC H3A 0G4, Canada
In 1906, McGill University awarded Wood with a Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degree.
In 1877, Wood received a Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Bishop's College (present-day Bishop's University). In 1903, Wood attained a Doctor of Civil Law degree from the same educational establishment.
("De Arte Venandi cum Avibus" was written shortly before t...)
"De Arte Venandi cum Avibus" was written shortly before the year 1250 by Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Sicily and Jerusalem, in whose court, with its remarkably cosmopolitan and highly intellectual life, may be found the real beginning of the Italian Renaissance. In spite of its title, it is far more than a dissertation on hunting. There is a lengthy introduction, dealing with the anatomy of birds, an intensely interesting description of avian habits and the excursions of migratory birds. Indeed, this ancient book has long been recognized as the first zoological treatise, written in the critical spirit of modern science.
The work was translated by Casey A. Wood and F. Marjorie Fyfe.
Casey Albert Wood was a Canadian ophthalmologist, comparative zoologist and ophthalmic ornithologist. He studied aspects of animal vision, especially those of birds. Besides, Casey was instrumental in establishing the Blacker-Wood collection in Zoology and Ornithology at the McGill University Library.
Background
Ethnicity:
Casey's father was a descendant of a seventeenth-century New England settler from Yorkshire and his mother was of French ancestry.
Casey Albert Wood was born on November 21, 1856, in Wellington, Canada West (present-day Wellington, Ontario, Canada). He was the third of four children of Orrin Cottier Wood and Rosa Sophia (Leggo) Wood. Orrin Cottier Wood, a physician, was a native of Jefferson County, New York, and a descendant of a seventeenth-century New England settler from Yorkshire - Epenetus Wood. Rosa Sophia (Leggo) Wood, a daughter of a captain in the Royal Navy, who held a Crown appointment, was of French descent.
Education
In his early years, Wood attended private French and English schools and in 1874 graduated from the Ottawa Collegiate Institute (present-day Lisgar Collegiate Institute). He then entered the medical faculty of the University of Bishop's College (present-day Bishop's University), the school, located in Montreal, which was later merged with the medical school of McGill University. There, at the University of Bishop's College, Casey received a Master of Surgery and a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1877. Later, in 1903, Wood attained a Doctor of Civil Law degree from the same educational establishment.
It's worth mentioning, that, Casey also attended the lectures of Dr. William Osler at McGill University, and the two became lifelong friends. In 1906, McGill University awarded Wood with a Master of Surgery and Doctor of Medicine degree. Also, in 1921, Casey received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the same university.
After completing his training, Wood practiced general medicine for several years in Montreal, where he also served as a professor of pathology and chemistry and attending physician to the Western Hospital. Becoming interested in diseases of the eye, Wood, in 1886, began a course of training at the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Post-Graduate Medical School. He then went to Europe, where he was trained at eye clinics in Berlin, Vienna and Paris and spent the years 1888-1889 as a clinical assistant at the Moorfields Eye Hospital.
Returning to the United States in 1890, Wood settled in Chicago. There, he served on the staff of several hospitals. In 1890, he was a professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Chicago Post-Graduate Medical School. In 1899-1906 and in 1913-1917, he held the same post at the medical school of the University of Illinois and at that of Northwestern University in 1906-1908.
Wood was a popular teacher, and his kindly manner and ability as a clinician and surgeon attracted a large private practice. During all these years, Wood also produced many scientific papers and several books, including "Lessons in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Eye Diseases" (1891), "The Commoner Diseases of the Eye" (1904), "A System of Ophthalmic Therapeutics" (1909 and 1911, 2 vols.). He also edited "The American Encyclopedia and Dictionary of Ophthalmology" (18 vols.) from 1913 to 1921 and served as the editor of the Annals of Ophthalmology in 1896-1898 and of the Ophthalmic Record in 1897-1918.
In recognition of his professional standing, Wood was elected chairman of the section on ophthalmology of the American Medical Association in 1898 and president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology in 1906. In 1913, Casey became a founding member of the American College of Surgeons.
It's worth mentioning, that Casey was a member of the Army Medical Corps Reserve, beginning in 1908, and when war was declared in 1917, he entered active service. After hospital duty in Ohio, he was assigned to Washington, D.C., where he worked with the Red Cross on the training and rehabilitation of blinded soldiers and then helped prepare a history of army hospitals during the war.
In 1918, Wood was appointed to the editorial board of the newly established Annals of Medical History. After retiring from his army post in 1920 with the rank of colonel, he, now sixty-three, moved to Palo Alto, California, and devoted the final two decades of his life to what had been his avocations. Among these was a strong interest in birds, particularly in their mechanism of seeing, as evidenced by his book "Fundus Oculi of Birds" (1917).
In the fall of 1920, Casey joined the famous zoologist William Beebe on a trip to British Guiana to study the eyes of birds and reptiles of that tropical area. He spent two years there, interrupted by brief visits to California, and collected more than two thousand specimens for research. His ornithological interests brought him an election to the American and British ornithological unions and an appointment, in 1931, as an honorary collaborator in the Division of Birds of the Smithsonian Institution.
In later years, often accompanied by his wife Emma, Wood carried out similar studies in many parts of the world. He made long sojourns in India and Ceylon, spent more than a year traveling throughout the islands of the South Pacific and often visited Europe. During these trips, he also searched for medieval books and manuscripts, relating to the history of ophthalmology, and in 1929, he brought out a translation of "De Oculis", a fifteenth-century treatise by Benevenutus Grassus of Jerusalem. Two years later, he published "An Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology", the result of many years' research.
Thereafter, Wood spent most of his time in Rome, where he was given free access to the treasures of the Vatican Library. With the help of scouts and dealers throughout Europe, he assembled a large personal collection of rare books, particularly in the field of ophthalmology, and enlisted the aid of scholars in the translations. The works included the "Memorandum Book of Ali ibn Isa", a tenth-century oculist of Baghdad. Wood learned enough Arabic to translate the book, with the assistance of Dr. Max Weyerhof of Cairo, and it was published in 1936. His final publication, "The Art of Falconry" (1943), was a translation of a thirteenth-century work, "De Arte Venandi cum Avibis", by Frederick II of Hohenstaufen, made by Wood and his niece and close companion, F. Marjorie Fyfe.
With the outbreak of World War II, Wood reluctantly left Rome and returned to California. He died at the age of eighty-five at the Scripps Metabolic Clinic in La Jolla, California, eight weeks after a cerebral hemorrhage.
At his death, Casey left all of his books, papers and museum specimens to McGill University.
Achievements
Casey Albert Wood gained prominence as an ophthalmologist, ornithologist and bibliophile. During his career, he held various honorary positions, including the post of president of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology, chairman of the section on ophthalmology of the American Medical Association, honorary collaborator in the Division of Birds of the Smithsonian Institution, among others. He also was a founding member of the American College of Surgeons.
Besides, Wood authored a handful of works, including "Lessons in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Eye Diseases" (1891), "The Commoner Diseases of the Eye" (1904), "A System Of Ophthalmic Therapeutics" (1911), "An Introduction to the Literature of Vertebrate Zoology" (1931), among others.
Wood was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and that of other establishments. He was also a member of different organizations, including the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, California Academy of Sciences, American Numismatic Society and University Club of Chicago, among others. Besides, Casey was also a member of American and British Ornithological unions.
president
American Academy of Medicine
,
United States
1907 - 1908
Personality
Wood had a strong interest in medical history and in book collecting. In Washington, he formed a close friendship with another medical historian and bibliophile - Fielding H. Garrison. The two even collaborated in preparing "A Physician's Anthology of English and American Poetry" (1920).
Connections
Casey married Emma (Shearer) Wood, who shared his interest in natural history and his pleasure in an outdoor life, on October 28, 1886. They had no children.
