Description and function of the ciliary nerves--some historical remarks on choroidal innervation.

The earliest accounts of the eye recognized its main function as providing vision, but the mechanism of how the eye functioned remained obscure for many centuries. The aim of the following work is to outline these changes in the understanding of a particular structure and function of the human body, namely, the ciliary nerves supplying the uveoscleral part of the eye. In the extensive study on the history of ophthalmology by Hirschberg (published between 1899 and 1918), the ciliary nerves and choroidal innervation are only sparsely mentioned.