ABSTRACT
In 1917, the German ophthalmologist Friedrich Best 1 published in Von Graefe’s Archiv für Ophthalmologie a report on 38 brain-damaged patients with visual field defects due to gunshot wounds or grenade splinters. Working in a field hospital close to the front line, Best saw the patients within days of their being wounded and observed them for the next two to four weeks during the course of their disease. The aim of his study was to describe the neuropathology and symptomatology of hemianopia in full detail. Best basically included patients with retrorolandic lesions affecting the primary visual cortex, the optic radiation, or the lateral geniculate body. His description offers a valuable insight into the attempts to understand the nature of symptoms associated with visual field defects at the beginning of the 20th century.
